6 git-svn - Bidirectional operation between a single Subversion branch and git
10 'git-svn' <command> [options] [arguments]
14 git-svn is a simple conduit for changesets between Subversion and git.
15 It is not to be confused with linkgit:git-svnimport[1], which is
18 git-svn was originally designed for an individual developer who wants a
19 bidirectional flow of changesets between a single branch in Subversion
20 and an arbitrary number of branches in git. Since its inception,
21 git-svn has gained the ability to track multiple branches in a manner
22 similar to git-svnimport.
24 git-svn is especially useful when it comes to tracking repositories
25 not organized in the way Subversion developers recommend (trunk,
26 branches, tags directories).
33 Initializes an empty git repository with additional
34 metadata directories for git-svn. The Subversion URL
35 may be specified as a command-line argument, or as full
36 URL arguments to -T/-t/-b. Optionally, the target
37 directory to operate on can be specified as a second
38 argument. Normally this command initializes the current
42 --trunk=<trunk_subdir>;;
44 --tags=<tags_subdir>;;
46 --branches=<branches_subdir>;;
49 These are optional command-line options for init. Each of
50 these flags can point to a relative repository path
51 (--tags=project/tags') or a full url
52 (--tags=https://foo.org/project/tags). The option --stdlayout is
53 a shorthand way of setting trunk,tags,branches as the relative paths,
54 which is the Subversion default. If any of the other options are given
55 as well, they take precedence.
57 Set the 'noMetadata' option in the [svn-remote] config.
59 Set the 'useSvmProps' option in the [svn-remote] config.
61 Set the 'useSvnsyncProps' option in the [svn-remote] config.
62 --rewrite-root=<URL>;;
63 Set the 'rewriteRoot' option in the [svn-remote] config.
65 For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http,
66 https, and plain svn), specify the username. For other
67 transports (eg svn+ssh://), you must include the username in
68 the URL, eg svn+ssh://foo@svn.bar.com/project
70 This allows one to specify a prefix which is prepended
71 to the names of remotes if trunk/branches/tags are
72 specified. The prefix does not automatically include a
73 trailing slash, so be sure you include one in the
74 argument if that is what you want. If --branches/-b is
75 specified, the prefix must include a trailing slash.
76 Setting a prefix is useful if you wish to track multiple
77 projects that share a common repository.
80 Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
81 tracking. The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
82 .git/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
86 Runs 'init' and 'fetch'. It will automatically create a
87 directory based on the basename of the URL passed to it;
88 or if a second argument is passed; it will create a directory
89 and work within that. It accepts all arguments that the
90 'init' and 'fetch' commands accept; with the exception of
91 '--fetch-all'. After a repository is cloned, the 'fetch'
92 command will be able to update revisions without affecting
93 the working tree; and the 'rebase' command will be able
94 to update the working tree with the latest changes.
97 This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD
98 and rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it.
100 This works similarly to 'svn update' or 'git-pull' except that
101 it preserves linear history with 'git-rebase' instead of
102 'git-merge' for ease of dcommiting with git-svn.
104 This accepts all options that 'git-svn fetch' and 'git-rebase'
105 accepts. However '--fetch-all' only fetches from the current
106 [svn-remote], and not all [svn-remote] definitions.
108 Like 'git-rebase'; this requires that the working tree be clean
109 and have no uncommitted changes.
113 Do not fetch remotely; only run 'git-rebase' against the
114 last fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
117 Commit each diff from a specified head directly to the SVN
118 repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or
119 not there is a diff between SVN and head). This will create
120 a revision in SVN for each commit in git.
121 It is recommended that you run git-svn fetch and rebase (not
122 pull or merge) your commits against the latest changes in the
124 An optional command-line argument may be specified as an
126 This is advantageous over 'set-tree' (below) because it produces
127 cleaner, more linear history.
130 After committing, do not rebase or reset.
134 This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn
135 users refer to -r/--revision numbers.
137 The following features from `svn log' are supported:
140 --revision=<n>[:<n>];;
141 is supported, non-numeric args are not:
142 HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ...
144 it's not completely compatible with the --verbose
145 output in svn log, but reasonably close.
147 is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count
148 merged/excluded commits
157 shows the git commit sha1, as well
159 our version of --pretty=oneline
162 NOTE: SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The regular svn
163 client converts the UTC time to the local time (or based on the TZ=
164 environment). This command has the same behaviour.
166 Any other arguments are passed directly to `git log'
170 When given an SVN revision number of the form 'rN', returns the
171 corresponding git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
172 tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched). When given a
173 tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
176 You should consider using 'dcommit' instead of this command.
177 Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN. This relies on
178 your imported fetch data being up-to-date. This makes
179 absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
180 simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
181 commit. All merging is assumed to have taken place
182 independently of git-svn functions.
185 Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
186 directories. The output is suitable for appending to
187 the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
190 Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
191 command-line. This command is intended for interoperability with
192 git-svnimport and does not rely on being inside an git-svn
193 init-ed repository. This command takes three arguments, (a) the
194 original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the
195 URL of the target Subversion repository. The final argument
196 (URL) may be omitted if you are working from a git-svn-aware
197 repository (that has been init-ed with git-svn).
198 The -r<revision> option is required for this.
201 Shows information about a file or directory similar to what
202 `svn info' provides. Does not currently support a -r/--revision
203 argument. Use the --url option to output only the value of the
212 --shared[={false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody}]::
213 --template=<template_directory>::
214 Only used with the 'init' command.
215 These are passed directly to linkgit:git-init[1].
220 Used with the 'fetch' command.
222 This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history
223 to be supported. $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
224 $NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
226 This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch;
227 but is generally not recommended because history will be skipped
233 Only used with the 'set-tree' command.
235 Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
236 order. Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
237 git-rev-list --pretty=oneline output can be used.
241 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
243 Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
244 behind. SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
245 removed by default if there are no files left in them. git
246 cannot version empty directories. Enabling this flag will make
247 the commit to SVN act like git.
249 config key: svn.rmdir
254 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
256 Edit the commit message before committing to SVN. This is off by
257 default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
263 --find-copies-harder::
265 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
267 They are both passed directly to git-diff-tree see
268 linkgit:git-diff-tree[1] for more information.
272 config key: svn.findcopiesharder
275 --authors-file=<filename>::
277 Syntax is compatible with the files used by git-svnimport and
280 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
281 loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
282 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
284 If this option is specified and git-svn encounters an SVN
285 committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, git-svn
286 will abort operation. The user will then have to add the
287 appropriate entry. Re-running the previous git-svn command
288 after the authors-file is modified should continue operation.
290 config key: svn.authorsfile
294 Make git-svn less verbose.
297 --repack-flags=<flags>::
299 These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches
302 --repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
303 to fetch before repacking. This defaults to repacking every
304 1000 commits fetched if no argument is specified.
306 --repack-flags are passed directly to linkgit:git-repack[1].
309 config key: svn.repack
310 config key: svn.repackflags
315 --strategy=<strategy>::
317 These are only used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
319 Passed directly to git-rebase when using 'dcommit' if a
320 'git-reset' cannot be used (see dcommit).
325 This is only used with the 'dcommit' command.
327 Print out the series of git arguments that would show
328 which diffs would be committed to SVN.
339 This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment). This
340 allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from
341 when tracking a single URL. The 'log' and 'dcommit' commands
342 no longer require this switch as an argument.
345 --svn-remote <remote name>::
346 Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use,
347 this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked.
351 This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory
352 that has been moved around within the repository, or if we
353 started tracking a branch and never tracked the trunk it was
354 descended from. This feature is enabled by default, use
355 --no-follow-parent to disable it.
357 config key: svn.followparent
360 CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
361 ------------------------
365 svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata::
367 This gets rid of the git-svn-id: lines at the end of every commit.
369 If you lose your .git/svn/git-svn/.rev_db file, git-svn will not
370 be able to rebuild it and you won't be able to fetch again,
371 either. This is fine for one-shot imports.
373 The 'git-svn log' command will not work on repositories using
374 this, either. Using this conflicts with the 'useSvmProps'
375 option for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
378 svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps::
380 This allows git-svn to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
381 mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
383 If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely
384 that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK).
385 The property contains a repository UUID and a revision. We want
386 to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so
387 introduce a helper function that returns the original identity
388 URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit
391 svn.useSvnsyncProps::
392 svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops::
393 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users
394 of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and
397 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot::
398 This allows users to create repositories from alternate
399 URLs. For example, an administrator could run git-svn on the
400 server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute
401 the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the
402 metadata so users of it will see the public URL.
404 Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps
405 options all affect the metadata generated and used by git-svn; they
406 *must* be set in the configuration file before any history is imported
407 and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
409 Additionally, only one of these four options can be used per-svn-remote
410 section because they affect the 'git-svn-id:' metadata line.
417 Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project:
419 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
420 # Clone a repo (like git clone):
421 git-svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project/trunk
422 # Enter the newly cloned directory:
424 # You should be on master branch, double-check with git-branch
426 # Do some work and commit locally to git:
428 # Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
429 # latest changes in SVN:
431 # Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using git) to SVN,
432 # as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
434 # Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file:
435 git-svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
436 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
438 Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
439 (complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
441 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
442 # Clone a repo (like git clone):
443 git-svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project -T trunk -b branches -t tags
444 # View all branches and tags you have cloned:
446 # Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
447 # with the appropriate name):
448 git reset --hard remotes/trunk
449 # You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time. The usage
450 # of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
451 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
453 The initial 'git-svn clone' can be quite time-consuming
454 (especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple
455 people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use
456 git-svn to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can
457 do the initial 'git-svn clone' to a repository on a server and
458 have each person clone that repository with 'git clone':
460 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
461 # Do the initial import on a server
462 ssh server "cd /pub && git-svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project
463 # Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
467 git remote add origin server:/pub/project
468 git config --add remote.origin.fetch=+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*
470 # Initialize git-svn locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
471 git-svn init http://svn.foo.org/project
472 # Pull the latest changes from Subversion
474 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
476 REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
477 ---------------------
479 Originally, git-svn recommended that the remotes/git-svn branch be
480 pulled or merged from. This is because the author favored
481 'git-svn set-tree B' to commit a single head rather than the
482 'git-svn set-tree A..B' notation to commit multiple commits.
484 If you use 'git-svn set-tree A..B' to commit several diffs and you do
485 not have the latest remotes/git-svn merged into my-branch, you should
486 use 'git-svn rebase' to update your work branch instead of 'git pull' or
487 'git merge'. 'pull/merge' can cause non-linear history to be flattened
488 when committing into SVN, which can lead to merge commits reversing
489 previous commits in SVN.
493 Merge tracking in Subversion is lacking and doing branched development
494 with Subversion can be cumbersome as a result. While git-svn can track
495 copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a
496 standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened
497 inside git back upstream to SVN users. Therefore it is advised that
498 users keep history as linear as possible inside git to ease
499 compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
504 For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with a less-capable system
505 (SVN), it is recommended that all git-svn users clone, fetch and dcommit
506 directly from the SVN server, and avoid all git-clone/pull/merge/push
507 operations between git repositories and branches. The recommended
508 method of exchanging code between git branches and users is
509 git-format-patch and git-am, or just dcommiting to the SVN repository.
511 Running 'git-merge' or 'git-pull' is NOT recommended on a branch you
512 plan to dcommit from. Subversion does not represent merges in any
513 reasonable or useful fashion; so users using Subversion cannot see any
514 merges you've made. Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a git branch
515 that is a mirror of an SVN branch, dcommit may commit to the wrong
518 'git-clone' does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
519 any git-svn metadata, or config. So repositories created and managed with
520 using git-svn should use rsync(1) for cloning, if cloning is to be done
523 Since 'dcommit' uses rebase internally, any git branches you git-push to
524 before dcommit on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
525 on the remote repository. This is generally considered bad practice,
526 see the git-push(1) documentation for details.
528 Do not use the --amend option of git-commit(1) on a change you've
529 already dcommitted. It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
530 you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
531 dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
536 We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable. Any unhandled
537 properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log
539 Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
540 tracked when committing to SVN. I do not plan on adding support for
541 this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
542 the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either). Committing
543 renamed and copied files are fully supported if they're similar enough
544 for git to detect them.
549 git-svn stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the
550 repository .git/config file. It is similar the core git
551 [remote] sections except 'fetch' keys do not accept glob
552 arguments; but they are instead handled by the 'branches'
553 and 'tags' keys. Since some SVN repositories are oddly
554 configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
555 listed below are allowed:
557 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
558 [svn-remote "project-a"]
559 url = http://server.org/svn
560 branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
561 tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
562 trunk = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
563 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
565 Keep in mind that the '*' (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref
566 (right of the ':') *must* be the farthest right path component;
567 however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's own
568 independent path component (surrounded by '/' or EOL). This
569 type of configuration is not automatically created by 'init' and
570 should be manually entered with a text-editor or using
571 linkgit:git-config[1]
575 linkgit:git-rebase[1]
579 Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
583 Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.