6 git-svn - Bidirectional operation between a Subversion repository and git
11 'git svn' <command> [options] [arguments]
15 'git svn' is a simple conduit for changesets between Subversion and git.
16 It provides a bidirectional flow of changes between a Subversion and a git
19 'git svn' can track a standard Subversion repository,
20 following the common "trunk/branches/tags" layout, with the --stdlayout option.
21 It can also follow branches and tags in any layout with the -T/-t/-b options
22 (see options to 'init' below, and also the 'clone' command).
24 Once tracking a Subversion repository (with any of the above methods), the git
25 repository can be updated from Subversion by the 'fetch' command and
26 Subversion updated from git by the 'dcommit' command.
32 Initializes an empty git repository with additional
33 metadata directories for 'git svn'. The Subversion URL
34 may be specified as a command-line argument, or as full
35 URL arguments to -T/-t/-b. Optionally, the target
36 directory to operate on can be specified as a second
37 argument. Normally this command initializes the current
41 --trunk=<trunk_subdir>;;
43 --tags=<tags_subdir>;;
45 --branches=<branches_subdir>;;
48 These are optional command-line options for init. Each of
49 these flags can point to a relative repository path
50 (--tags=project/tags) or a full url
51 (--tags=https://foo.org/project/tags).
52 You can specify more than one --tags and/or --branches options, in case
53 your Subversion repository places tags or branches under multiple paths.
54 The option --stdlayout is
55 a shorthand way of setting trunk,tags,branches as the relative paths,
56 which is the Subversion default. If any of the other options are given
57 as well, they take precedence.
59 Set the 'noMetadata' option in the [svn-remote] config.
60 This option is not recommended, please read the 'svn.noMetadata'
61 section of this manpage before using this option.
63 Set the 'useSvmProps' option in the [svn-remote] config.
65 Set the 'useSvnsyncProps' option in the [svn-remote] config.
66 --rewrite-root=<URL>;;
67 Set the 'rewriteRoot' option in the [svn-remote] config.
68 --rewrite-uuid=<UUID>;;
69 Set the 'rewriteUUID' option in the [svn-remote] config.
71 For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http,
72 https, and plain svn), specify the username. For other
73 transports (eg svn+ssh://), you must include the username in
74 the URL, eg svn+ssh://foo@svn.bar.com/project
76 This allows one to specify a prefix which is prepended
77 to the names of remotes if trunk/branches/tags are
78 specified. The prefix does not automatically include a
79 trailing slash, so be sure you include one in the
80 argument if that is what you want. If --branches/-b is
81 specified, the prefix must include a trailing slash.
82 Setting a prefix is useful if you wish to track multiple
83 projects that share a common repository.
84 --ignore-paths=<regex>;;
85 When passed to 'init' or 'clone' this regular expression will
86 be preserved as a config key. See 'fetch' for a description
89 When tracking multiple directories (using --stdlayout,
90 --branches, or --tags options), git svn will attempt to connect
91 to the root (or highest allowed level) of the Subversion
92 repository. This default allows better tracking of history if
93 entire projects are moved within a repository, but may cause
94 issues on repositories where read access restrictions are in
95 place. Passing '--no-minimize-url' will allow git svn to
96 accept URLs as-is without attempting to connect to a higher
97 level directory. This option is off by default when only
98 one URL/branch is tracked (it would do little good).
101 Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
102 tracking. The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
103 .git/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
107 Store Git commit times in the local timezone instead of UTC. This
108 makes 'git log' (even without --date=local) show the same times
109 that `svn log` would in the local timezone.
111 This doesn't interfere with interoperating with the Subversion
112 repository you cloned from, but if you wish for your local Git
113 repository to be able to interoperate with someone else's local Git
114 repository, either don't use this option or you should both use it in
115 the same local timezone.
118 Fetch only from the SVN parent of the current HEAD.
120 --ignore-paths=<regex>;;
121 This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will
122 cause skipping of all matching paths from checkout from SVN.
123 The '--ignore-paths' option should match for every 'fetch'
124 (including automatic fetches due to 'clone', 'dcommit',
125 'rebase', etc) on a given repository.
128 config key: svn-remote.<name>.ignore-paths
130 If the ignore-paths config key is set and the command line option is
131 also given, both regular expressions will be used.
136 Skip "doc*" directory for every fetch;;
138 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
139 --ignore-paths="^doc"
140 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
142 Skip "branches" and "tags" of first level directories;;
144 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
145 --ignore-paths="^[^/]+/(?:branches|tags)"
146 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
149 --log-window-size=<n>;;
150 Fetch <n> log entries per request when scanning Subversion history.
151 The default is 100. For very large Subversion repositories, larger
152 values may be needed for 'clone'/'fetch' to complete in reasonable
153 time. But overly large values may lead to higher memory usage and
157 Runs 'init' and 'fetch'. It will automatically create a
158 directory based on the basename of the URL passed to it;
159 or if a second argument is passed; it will create a directory
160 and work within that. It accepts all arguments that the
161 'init' and 'fetch' commands accept; with the exception of
162 '--fetch-all' and '--parent'. After a repository is cloned,
163 the 'fetch' command will be able to update revisions without
164 affecting the working tree; and the 'rebase' command will be
165 able to update the working tree with the latest changes.
167 --preserve-empty-dirs;;
168 Create a placeholder file in the local Git repository for each
169 empty directory fetched from Subversion. This includes directories
170 that become empty by removing all entries in the Subversion
171 repository (but not the directory itself). The placeholder files
172 are also tracked and removed when no longer necessary.
174 --placeholder-filename=<filename>;;
175 Set the name of placeholder files created by --preserve-empty-dirs.
176 Default: ".gitignore"
179 This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD
180 and rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it.
182 This works similarly to `svn update` or 'git pull' except that
183 it preserves linear history with 'git rebase' instead of
184 'git merge' for ease of dcommitting with 'git svn'.
186 This accepts all options that 'git svn fetch' and 'git rebase'
187 accept. However, '--fetch-all' only fetches from the current
188 [svn-remote], and not all [svn-remote] definitions.
190 Like 'git rebase'; this requires that the working tree be clean
191 and have no uncommitted changes.
195 Do not fetch remotely; only run 'git rebase' against the
196 last fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
199 Commit each diff from the current branch directly to the SVN
200 repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or
201 not there is a diff between SVN and head). This will create
202 a revision in SVN for each commit in git.
204 When an optional git branch name (or a git commit object name)
205 is specified as an argument, the subcommand works on the specified
206 branch, not on the current branch.
208 Use of 'dcommit' is preferred to 'set-tree' (below).
211 After committing, do not rebase or reset.
213 Commit to this SVN URL (the full path). This is intended to
214 allow existing 'git svn' repositories created with one transport
215 method (e.g. `svn://` or `http://` for anonymous read) to be
216 reused if a user is later given access to an alternate transport
217 method (e.g. `svn+ssh://` or `https://`) for commit.
220 config key: svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
221 config key: svn.commiturl (overwrites all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl options)
223 Using this option for any other purpose (don't ask) is very strongly
226 --mergeinfo=<mergeinfo>;;
227 Add the given merge information during the dcommit
228 (e.g. `--mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10"`). All svn server versions can
229 store this information (as a property), and svn clients starting from
230 version 1.5 can make use of it. To specify merge information from multiple
231 branches, use a single space character between the branches
232 (`--mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10 /branches/bar:3,5-6,8"`)
235 config key: svn.pushmergeinfo
237 This option will cause git-svn to attempt to automatically populate the
238 svn:mergeinfo property in the SVN repository when possible. Currently, this can
239 only be done when dcommitting non-fast-forward merges where all parents but the
240 first have already been pushed into SVN.
243 Ask the user to confirm that a patch set should actually be sent to SVN.
244 For each patch, one may answer "yes" (accept this patch), "no" (discard this
245 patch), "all" (accept all patches), or "quit".
247 'git svn dcommit' returns immediately if answer if "no" or "quit", without
248 commiting anything to SVN.
251 Create a branch in the SVN repository.
255 Allows to specify the commit message.
259 Create a tag by using the tags_subdir instead of the branches_subdir
260 specified during git svn init.
264 If more than one --branches (or --tags) option was given to the 'init'
265 or 'clone' command, you must provide the location of the branch (or
266 tag) you wish to create in the SVN repository. The value of this
267 option must match one of the paths specified by a --branches (or
268 --tags) option. You can see these paths with the commands
270 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.branches
271 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.tags
273 where <name> is the name of the SVN repository as specified by the -R option to
274 'init' (or "svn" by default).
277 Specify the SVN username to perform the commit as. This option overrides
278 the 'username' configuration property.
281 Use the specified URL to connect to the destination Subversion
282 repository. This is useful in cases where the source SVN
283 repository is read-only. This option overrides configuration
284 property 'commiturl'.
286 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
290 Create a tag in the SVN repository. This is a shorthand for
294 This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn
295 users refer to -r/--revision numbers.
297 The following features from `svn log' are supported:
301 --revision=<n>[:<n>];;
302 is supported, non-numeric args are not:
303 HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ...
306 it's not completely compatible with the --verbose
307 output in svn log, but reasonably close.
309 is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count
310 merged/excluded commits
319 shows the git commit sha1, as well
321 our version of --pretty=oneline
324 NOTE: SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The regular svn
325 client converts the UTC time to the local time (or based on the TZ=
326 environment). This command has the same behaviour.
328 Any other arguments are passed directly to 'git log'
331 Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file. The
332 output of this mode is format-compatible with the output of
333 `svn blame' by default. Like the SVN blame command,
334 local uncommitted changes in the working tree are ignored;
335 the version of the file in the HEAD revision is annotated. Unknown
336 arguments are passed directly to 'git blame'.
339 Produce output in the same format as 'git blame', but with
340 SVN revision numbers instead of git commit hashes. In this mode,
341 changes that haven't been committed to SVN (including local
342 working-copy edits) are shown as revision 0.
345 When given an SVN revision number of the form 'rN', returns the
346 corresponding git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
347 tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched). When given a
348 tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
351 Don't require an exact match if given an SVN revision, instead find
352 the commit corresponding to the state of the SVN repository (on the
353 current branch) at the specified revision.
356 Don't require an exact match if given an SVN revision; if there is
357 not an exact match return the closest match searching forward in the
361 You should consider using 'dcommit' instead of this command.
362 Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN. This relies on
363 your imported fetch data being up-to-date. This makes
364 absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
365 simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
366 commit. All merging is assumed to have taken place
367 independently of 'git svn' functions.
370 Recursively finds the svn:ignore property on directories and
371 creates matching .gitignore files. The resulting files are staged to
372 be committed, but are not committed. Use -r/--revision to refer to a
376 Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
377 directories. The output is suitable for appending to
378 the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
381 Attempts to recreate empty directories that core git cannot track
382 based on information in $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files.
383 Empty directories are automatically recreated when using
384 "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase", so "mkdirs" is intended
385 for use after commands like "git checkout" or "git reset".
386 (See the svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs config file option for
390 Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
391 command-line. This command does not rely on being inside an `git svn
392 init`-ed repository. This command takes three arguments, (a) the
393 original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the
394 URL of the target Subversion repository. The final argument
395 (URL) may be omitted if you are working from a 'git svn'-aware
396 repository (that has been `init`-ed with 'git svn').
397 The -r<revision> option is required for this.
400 Shows information about a file or directory similar to what
401 `svn info' provides. Does not currently support a -r/--revision
402 argument. Use the --url option to output only the value of the
406 Lists the properties stored in the Subversion repository about a
407 given file or directory. Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific
411 Gets the Subversion property given as the first argument, for a
412 file. A specific revision can be specified with -r/--revision.
415 Shows the Subversion externals. Use -r/--revision to specify a
419 Compress $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files in .git/svn
420 and remove $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>index files in .git/svn.
423 Undoes the effects of 'fetch' back to the specified revision.
424 This allows you to re-'fetch' an SVN revision. Normally the
425 contents of an SVN revision should never change and 'reset'
426 should not be necessary. However, if SVN permissions change,
427 or if you alter your --ignore-paths option, a 'fetch' may fail
428 with "not found in commit" (file not previously visible) or
429 "checksum mismatch" (missed a modification). If the problem
430 file cannot be ignored forever (with --ignore-paths) the only
431 way to repair the repo is to use 'reset'.
433 Only the rev_map and refs/remotes/git-svn are changed. Follow 'reset'
434 with a 'fetch' and then 'git reset' or 'git rebase' to move local
435 branches onto the new tree.
439 Specify the most recent revision to keep. All later revisions
443 Discard the specified revision as well, keeping the nearest
446 Assume you have local changes in "master", but you need to refetch "r2".
449 r1---r2---r3 remotes/git-svn
454 Fix the ignore-paths or SVN permissions problem that caused "r2" to
455 be incomplete in the first place. Then:
462 r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
464 r2---r3---A---B master
467 Then fixup "master" with 'git rebase'.
468 Do NOT use 'git merge' or your history will not be compatible with a
472 git rebase --onto remotes/git-svn A^ master
475 r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
483 --shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody)]::
484 --template=<template_directory>::
485 Only used with the 'init' command.
486 These are passed directly to 'git init'.
490 Used with the 'fetch' command.
492 This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history
493 to be supported. $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
494 $NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
496 This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch;
497 but is generally not recommended because history will be skipped
502 Only used with the 'set-tree' command.
504 Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
505 order. Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
506 'git rev-list --pretty=oneline' output can be used.
509 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
511 Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
512 behind. SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
513 removed by default if there are no files left in them. git
514 cannot version empty directories. Enabling this flag will make
515 the commit to SVN act like git.
518 config key: svn.rmdir
522 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
524 Edit the commit message before committing to SVN. This is off by
525 default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
532 --find-copies-harder::
533 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
535 They are both passed directly to 'git diff-tree'; see
536 linkgit:git-diff-tree[1] for more information.
540 config key: svn.findcopiesharder
543 --authors-file=<filename>::
544 Syntax is compatible with the file used by 'git cvsimport':
546 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
547 loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
548 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
550 If this option is specified and 'git svn' encounters an SVN
551 committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, 'git svn'
552 will abort operation. The user will then have to add the
553 appropriate entry. Re-running the previous 'git svn' command
554 after the authors-file is modified should continue operation.
557 config key: svn.authorsfile
559 --authors-prog=<filename>::
560 If this option is specified, for each SVN committer name that
561 does not exist in the authors file, the given file is executed
562 with the committer name as the first argument. The program is
563 expected to return a single line of the form "Name <email>",
564 which will be treated as if included in the authors file.
568 Make 'git svn' less verbose. Specify a second time to make it
572 --repack-flags=<flags>::
573 These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches with
576 --repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
577 to fetch before repacking. This defaults to repacking every
578 1000 commits fetched if no argument is specified.
580 --repack-flags are passed directly to 'git repack'.
583 config key: svn.repack
584 config key: svn.repackflags
589 --strategy=<strategy>::
592 These are only used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
594 Passed directly to 'git rebase' when using 'dcommit' if a
595 'git reset' cannot be used (see 'dcommit').
599 This can be used with the 'dcommit', 'rebase', 'branch' and
602 For 'dcommit', print out the series of git arguments that would show
603 which diffs would be committed to SVN.
605 For 'rebase', display the local branch associated with the upstream svn
606 repository associated with the current branch and the URL of svn
607 repository that will be fetched from.
609 For 'branch' and 'tag', display the urls that will be used for copying when
610 creating the branch or tag.
613 When retrieving svn commits into git (as part of 'fetch', 'rebase', or
614 'dcommit' operations), look for the first `From:` or `Signed-off-by:` line
615 in the log message and use that as the author string.
617 When committing to svn from git (as part of 'commit-diff', 'set-tree' or 'dcommit'
618 operations), if the existing log message doesn't already have a
619 `From:` or `Signed-off-by:` line, append a `From:` line based on the
620 git commit's author string. If you use this, then `--use-log-author`
621 will retrieve a valid author string for all commits.
629 This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment). This
630 allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from
631 when tracking a single URL. The 'log' and 'dcommit' commands
632 no longer require this switch as an argument.
635 --svn-remote <remote name>::
636 Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use,
637 this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked.
641 This option is only relevant if we are tracking branches (using
642 one of the repository layout options --trunk, --tags,
643 --branches, --stdlayout). For each tracked branch, try to find
644 out where its revision was copied from, and set
645 a suitable parent in the first git commit for the branch.
646 This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory
647 that has been moved around within the repository. If this
648 feature is disabled, the branches created by 'git svn' will all
649 be linear and not share any history, meaning that there will be
650 no information on where branches were branched off or merged.
651 However, following long/convoluted histories can take a long
652 time, so disabling this feature may speed up the cloning
653 process. This feature is enabled by default, use
654 --no-follow-parent to disable it.
657 config key: svn.followparent
659 CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
660 ------------------------
663 svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata::
664 This gets rid of the 'git-svn-id:' lines at the end of every commit.
666 This option can only be used for one-shot imports as 'git svn'
667 will not be able to fetch again without metadata. Additionally,
668 if you lose your .git/svn/**/.rev_map.* files, 'git svn' will not
669 be able to rebuild them.
671 The 'git svn log' command will not work on repositories using
672 this, either. Using this conflicts with the 'useSvmProps'
673 option for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
675 This option is NOT recommended as it makes it difficult to track down
676 old references to SVN revision numbers in existing documentation, bug
677 reports and archives. If you plan to eventually migrate from SVN to git
678 and are certain about dropping SVN history, consider
679 linkgit:git-filter-branch[1] instead. filter-branch also allows
680 reformatting of metadata for ease-of-reading and rewriting authorship
681 info for non-"svn.authorsFile" users.
684 svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps::
685 This allows 'git svn' to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
686 mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
688 If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely
689 that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK).
690 The property contains a repository UUID and a revision. We want
691 to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so
692 introduce a helper function that returns the original identity
693 URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit
696 svn.useSvnsyncProps::
697 svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops::
698 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users
699 of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and
702 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot::
703 This allows users to create repositories from alternate
704 URLs. For example, an administrator could run 'git svn' on the
705 server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute
706 the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the
707 metadata so users of it will see the public URL.
709 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteUUID::
710 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users who need
711 to remap the UUID manually. This may be useful in situations
712 where the original UUID is not available via either useSvmProps
715 svn-remote.<name>.pushurl::
717 Similar to git's 'remote.<name>.pushurl', this key is designed
718 to be used in cases where 'url' points to an SVN repository
719 via a read-only transport, to provide an alternate read/write
720 transport. It is assumed that both keys point to the same
721 repository. Unlike 'commiturl', 'pushurl' is a base path. If
722 either 'commiturl' or 'pushurl' could be used, 'commiturl'
725 svn.brokenSymlinkWorkaround::
726 This disables potentially expensive checks to workaround
727 broken symlinks checked into SVN by broken clients. Set this
728 option to "false" if you track a SVN repository with many
729 empty blobs that are not symlinks. This option may be changed
730 while 'git svn' is running and take effect on the next
731 revision fetched. If unset, 'git svn' assumes this option to
734 svn.pathnameencoding::
735 This instructs git svn to recode pathnames to a given encoding.
736 It can be used by windows users and by those who work in non-utf8
737 locales to avoid corrupted file names with non-ASCII characters.
738 Valid encodings are the ones supported by Perl's Encode module.
740 svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs::
741 Normally, the "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase" commands
742 attempt to recreate empty directories that are in the
743 Subversion repository. If this option is set to "false", then
744 empty directories will only be created if the "git svn mkdirs"
745 command is run explicitly. If unset, 'git svn' assumes this
748 Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, rewriteUUID, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps
749 options all affect the metadata generated and used by 'git svn'; they
750 *must* be set in the configuration file before any history is imported
751 and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
753 Additionally, only one of these options can be used per svn-remote
754 section because they affect the 'git-svn-id:' metadata line, except
755 for rewriteRoot and rewriteUUID which can be used together.
761 Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project
762 (ignoring tags and branches):
764 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
765 # Clone a repo (like git clone):
766 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project/trunk
767 # Enter the newly cloned directory:
769 # You should be on master branch, double-check with 'git branch'
771 # Do some work and commit locally to git:
773 # Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
774 # latest changes in SVN:
776 # Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using git) to SVN,
777 # as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
779 # Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file:
780 git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
781 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
783 Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
784 (complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
786 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
787 # Clone a repo with standard SVN directory layout (like git clone):
788 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project --stdlayout
789 # Or, if the repo uses a non-standard directory layout:
790 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project -T tr -b branch -t tag
791 # View all branches and tags you have cloned:
793 # Create a new branch in SVN
795 # Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
796 # with the appropriate name):
797 git reset --hard remotes/trunk
798 # You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time. The usage
799 # of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
800 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
802 The initial 'git svn clone' can be quite time-consuming
803 (especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple
804 people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use
805 'git svn' to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can
806 do the initial 'git svn clone' to a repository on a server and
807 have each person clone that repository with 'git clone':
809 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
810 # Do the initial import on a server
811 ssh server "cd /pub && git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project
812 # Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
816 git remote add origin server:/pub/project
817 git config --replace-all remote.origin.fetch '+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*'
819 # Prevent fetch/pull from remote git server in the future,
820 # we only want to use git svn for future updates
821 git config --remove-section remote.origin
822 # Create a local branch from one of the branches just fetched
823 git checkout -b master FETCH_HEAD
824 # Initialize 'git svn' locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
825 git svn init http://svn.example.com/project
826 # Pull the latest changes from Subversion
828 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
830 REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
831 ---------------------
832 Prefer to use 'git svn rebase' or 'git rebase', rather than
833 'git pull' or 'git merge' to synchronize unintegrated commits with a 'git svn'
834 branch. Doing so will keep the history of unintegrated commits linear with
835 respect to the upstream SVN repository and allow the use of the preferred
836 'git svn dcommit' subcommand to push unintegrated commits back into SVN.
838 Originally, 'git svn' recommended that developers pulled or merged from
839 the 'git svn' branch. This was because the author favored
840 `git svn set-tree B` to commit a single head rather than the
841 `git svn set-tree A..B` notation to commit multiple commits. Use of
842 'git pull' or 'git merge' with `git svn set-tree A..B` will cause non-linear
843 history to be flattened when committing into SVN and this can lead to merge
844 commits unexpectedly reversing previous commits in SVN.
848 While 'git svn' can track
849 copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a
850 standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened
851 inside git back upstream to SVN users. Therefore it is advised that
852 users keep history as linear as possible inside git to ease
853 compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
855 HANDLING OF SVN BRANCHES
856 ------------------------
857 If 'git svn' is configured to fetch branches (and --follow-branches
858 is in effect), it sometimes creates multiple git branches for one
859 SVN branch, where the addtional branches have names of the form
860 'branchname@nnn' (with nnn an SVN revision number). These additional
861 branches are created if 'git svn' cannot find a parent commit for the
862 first commit in an SVN branch, to connect the branch to the history of
865 Normally, the first commit in an SVN branch consists
866 of a copy operation. 'git svn' will read this commit to get the SVN
867 revision the branch was created from. It will then try to find the
868 git commit that corresponds to this SVN revision, and use that as the
869 parent of the branch. However, it is possible that there is no suitable
870 git commit to serve as parent. This will happen, among other reasons,
871 if the SVN branch is a copy of a revision that was not fetched by 'git
872 svn' (e.g. because it is an old revision that was skipped with
873 '--revision'), or if in SVN a directory was copied that is not tracked
874 by 'git svn' (such as a branch that is not tracked at all, or a
875 subdirectory of a tracked branch). In these cases, 'git svn' will still
876 create a git branch, but instead of using an existing git commit as the
877 parent of the branch, it will read the SVN history of the directory the
878 branch was copied from and create appropriate git commits. This is
879 indicated by the message "Initializing parent: <branchname>".
881 Additionally, it will create a special branch named
882 '<branchname>@<SVN-Revision>', where <SVN-Revision> is the SVN revision
883 number the branch was copied from. This branch will point to the newly
884 created parent commit of the branch. If in SVN the branch was deleted
885 and later recreated from a different version, there will be multiple
886 such branches with an '@'.
888 Note that this may mean that multiple git commits are created for a
891 An example: in an SVN repository with a standard
892 trunk/tags/branches layout, a directory trunk/sub is created in r.100.
893 In r.200, trunk/sub is branched by copying it to branches/. 'git svn
894 clone -s' will then create a branch 'sub'. It will also create new git
895 commits for r.100 through r.199 and use these as the history of branch
896 'sub'. Thus there will be two git commits for each revision from r.100
897 to r.199 (one containing trunk/, one containing trunk/sub/). Finally,
898 it will create a branch 'sub@200' pointing to the new parent commit of
899 branch 'sub' (i.e. the commit for r.200 and trunk/sub/).
904 For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with Subversion,
905 it is recommended that all 'git svn' users clone, fetch and dcommit
906 directly from the SVN server, and avoid all 'git clone'/'pull'/'merge'/'push'
907 operations between git repositories and branches. The recommended
908 method of exchanging code between git branches and users is
909 'git format-patch' and 'git am', or just 'dcommit'ing to the SVN repository.
911 Running 'git merge' or 'git pull' is NOT recommended on a branch you
912 plan to 'dcommit' from because Subversion users cannot see any
913 merges you've made. Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a git branch
914 that is a mirror of an SVN branch, 'dcommit' may commit to the wrong
917 If you do merge, note the following rule: 'git svn dcommit' will
918 attempt to commit on top of the SVN commit named in
919 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
920 git log --grep=^git-svn-id: --first-parent -1
921 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
922 You 'must' therefore ensure that the most recent commit of the branch
923 you want to dcommit to is the 'first' parent of the merge. Chaos will
924 ensue otherwise, especially if the first parent is an older commit on
927 'git clone' does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
928 any 'git svn' metadata, or config. So repositories created and managed with
929 using 'git svn' should use 'rsync' for cloning, if cloning is to be done
932 Since 'dcommit' uses rebase internally, any git branches you 'git push' to
933 before 'dcommit' on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
934 on the remote repository. This is generally considered bad practice,
935 see the linkgit:git-push[1] documentation for details.
937 Do not use the --amend option of linkgit:git-commit[1] on a change you've
938 already dcommitted. It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
939 you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
940 dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
942 When cloning an SVN repository, if none of the options for describing
943 the repository layout is used (--trunk, --tags, --branches,
944 --stdlayout), 'git svn clone' will create a git repository with
945 completely linear history, where branches and tags appear as separate
946 directories in the working copy. While this is the easiest way to get a
947 copy of a complete repository, for projects with many branches it will
948 lead to a working copy many times larger than just the trunk. Thus for
949 projects using the standard directory structure (trunk/branches/tags),
950 it is recommended to clone with option '--stdlayout'. If the project
951 uses a non-standard structure, and/or if branches and tags are not
952 required, it is easiest to only clone one directory (typically trunk),
953 without giving any repository layout options. If the full history with
954 branches and tags is required, the options '--trunk' / '--branches' /
955 '--tags' must be used.
957 When using multiple --branches or --tags, 'git svn' does not automatically
958 handle name collisions (for example, if two branches from different paths have
959 the same name, or if a branch and a tag have the same name). In these cases,
960 use 'init' to set up your git repository then, before your first 'fetch', edit
961 the .git/config file so that the branches and tags are associated with
962 different name spaces. For example:
964 branches = stable/*:refs/remotes/svn/stable/*
965 branches = debug/*:refs/remotes/svn/debug/*
970 We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable. Any unhandled
971 properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log
973 Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
974 tracked when committing to SVN. I do not plan on adding support for
975 this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
976 the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either). Committing
977 renamed and copied files is fully supported if they're similar enough
978 for git to detect them.
980 In SVN, it is possible (though discouraged) to commit changes to a tag
981 (because a tag is just a directory copy, thus technically the same as a
982 branch). When cloning an SVN repository, 'git svn' cannot know if such a
983 commit to a tag will happen in the future. Thus it acts conservatively
984 and imports all SVN tags as branches, prefixing the tag name with 'tags/'.
989 'git svn' stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the
990 repository .git/config file. It is similar the core git
991 [remote] sections except 'fetch' keys do not accept glob
992 arguments; but they are instead handled by the 'branches'
993 and 'tags' keys. Since some SVN repositories are oddly
994 configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
995 listed below are allowed:
997 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
998 [svn-remote "project-a"]
999 url = http://server.org/svn
1000 fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
1001 branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
1002 tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
1003 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1005 Keep in mind that the '\*' (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref
1006 (right of the ':') *must* be the farthest right path component;
1007 however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's an
1008 independent path component (surrounded by '/' or EOL). This
1009 type of configuration is not automatically created by 'init' and
1010 should be manually entered with a text-editor or using 'git config'.
1012 It is also possible to fetch a subset of branches or tags by using a
1013 comma-separated list of names within braces. For example:
1015 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1016 [svn-remote "huge-project"]
1017 url = http://server.org/svn
1018 fetch = trunk/src:refs/remotes/trunk
1019 branches = branches/{red,green}/src:refs/remotes/branches/*
1020 tags = tags/{1.0,2.0}/src:refs/remotes/tags/*
1021 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1023 Note that git-svn keeps track of the highest revision in which a branch
1024 or tag has appeared. If the subset of branches or tags is changed after
1025 fetching, then .git/svn/.metadata must be manually edited to remove (or
1026 reset) branches-maxRev and/or tags-maxRev as appropriate.
1030 linkgit:git-rebase[1]
1034 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite