git-svn(1)
NAME
git-svn - Bidirectional operation between a Subversion repository and Git
SYNOPSIS
git svn <command> [options] [arguments]
DESCRIPTION
git svn is a simple conduit for changesets between Subversion and Git. It provides a bidirectional flow of changes between a Subversion and a Git repository. git svn can track a standard Subversion repository, following the common "trunk/branches/tags" layout, with the --stdlayout option. It can also follow branches and tags in any layout with the -T/-t/-b options (see options to init below, and also the clone command). Once tracking a Subversion repository (with any of the above methods), the Git repository can be updated from Subversion by the fetch command and Subversion updated from Git by the dcommit command.
COMMANDS
init
Initializes an empty Git repository with additional metadata
directories for git svn. The Subversion URL may be specified as a
command-line argument, or as full URL arguments to -T/-t/-b.
Optionally, the target directory to operate on can be specified as
a second argument. Normally this command initializes the current
directory.
-T<trunk_subdir>, --trunk=<trunk_subdir>, -t<tags_subdir>,
--tags=<tags_subdir>, -b<branches_subdir>,
--branches=<branches_subdir>, -s, --stdlayout
These are optional command-line options for init. Each of these
flags can point to a relative repository path
(--tags=project/tags) or a full url
(--tags=https://foo.org/project/tags). You can specify more
than one --tags and/or --branches options, in case your
Subversion repository places tags or branches under multiple
paths. The option --stdlayout is a shorthand way of setting
trunk,tags,branches as the relative paths, which is the
Subversion default. If any of the other options are given as
well, they take precedence.
--no-metadata
Set the noMetadata option in the [svn-remote] config. This
option is not recommended, please read the svn.noMetadata
section of this manpage before using this option.
--use-svm-props
Set the useSvmProps option in the [svn-remote] config.
--use-svnsync-props
Set the useSvnsyncProps option in the [svn-remote] config.
--rewrite-root=<URL>
Set the rewriteRoot option in the [svn-remote] config.
--rewrite-uuid=<UUID>
Set the rewriteUUID option in the [svn-remote] config.
--username=<user>
For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http,
https, and plain svn), specify the username. For other
transports (e.g. svn+ssh://), you must include the username in
the URL, e.g. svn+ssh://foo@svn.bar.com/project
--prefix=<prefix>
This allows one to specify a prefix which is prepended to the
names of remotes if trunk/branches/tags are specified. The
prefix does not automatically include a trailing slash, so be
sure you include one in the argument if that is what you want.
If --branches/-b is specified, the prefix must include a
trailing slash. Setting a prefix (with a trailing slash) is
strongly encouraged in any case, as your SVN-tracking refs will
then be located at "refs/remotes/$prefix/", which is compatible
with Git's own remote-tracking ref layout
(refs/remotes/$remote/). Setting a prefix is also useful if you
wish to track multiple projects that share a common repository.
By default, the prefix is set to origin/.
Note
Before Git v2.0, the default prefix was "" (no prefix).
This meant that SVN-tracking refs were put at
"refs/remotes/*", which is incompatible with how Git's own
remote-tracking refs are organized. If you still want the
old default, you can get it by passing --prefix "" on the
command line (--prefix="" may not work if your Perl's
Getopt::Long is < v2.37).
--ignore-paths=<regex>
When passed to init or clone this regular expression will be
preserved as a config key. See fetch for a description of
--ignore-paths.
--include-paths=<regex>
When passed to init or clone this regular expression will be
preserved as a config key. See fetch for a description of
--include-paths.
--no-minimize-url
When tracking multiple directories (using --stdlayout,
--branches, or --tags options), git svn will attempt to connect
to the root (or highest allowed level) of the Subversion
repository. This default allows better tracking of history if
entire projects are moved within a repository, but may cause
issues on repositories where read access restrictions are in
place. Passing --no-minimize-url will allow git svn to accept
URLs as-is without attempting to connect to a higher level
directory. This option is off by default when only one
URL/branch is tracked (it would do little good).
fetch
Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
tracking. The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
$GIT_DIR/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
argument.
This automatically updates the rev_map if needed (see
$GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* in the FILES section below for
details).
--localtime
Store Git commit times in the local time zone instead of UTC.
This makes git log (even without --date=local) show the same
times that svn log would in the local time zone.
This doesn't interfere with interoperating with the Subversion
repository you cloned from, but if you wish for your local Git
repository to be able to interoperate with someone else's local
Git repository, either don't use this option or you should both
use it in the same local time zone.
--parent
Fetch only from the SVN parent of the current HEAD.
--ignore-paths=<regex>
This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will
cause skipping of all matching paths from checkout from SVN.
The --ignore-paths option should match for every fetch
(including automatic fetches due to clone, dcommit, rebase,
etc) on a given repository.
config key: svn-remote.<name>.ignore-paths
If the ignore-paths configuration key is set, and the
command-line option is also given, both regular expressions
will be used.
Examples:
Skip "doc*" directory for every fetch
--ignore-paths="^doc"
Skip "branches" and "tags" of first level directories
--ignore-paths="^[^/]+/(?:branches|tags)"
--include-paths=<regex>
This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will
cause the inclusion of only matching paths from checkout from
SVN. The --include-paths option should match for every fetch
(including automatic fetches due to clone, dcommit, rebase,
etc) on a given repository. --ignore-paths takes precedence
over --include-paths.
config key: svn-remote.<name>.include-paths
--log-window-size=<n>
Fetch <n> log entries per request when scanning Subversion
history. The default is 100. For very large Subversion
repositories, larger values may be needed for clone/fetch to
complete in reasonable time. But overly large values may lead
to higher memory usage and request timeouts.
clone
Runs init and fetch. It will automatically create a directory based
on the basename of the URL passed to it; or if a second argument is
passed; it will create a directory and work within that. It accepts
all arguments that the init and fetch commands accept; with the
exception of --fetch-all and --parent. After a repository is
cloned, the fetch command will be able to update revisions without
affecting the working tree; and the rebase command will be able to
update the working tree with the latest changes.
--preserve-empty-dirs
Create a placeholder file in the local Git repository for each
empty directory fetched from Subversion. This includes
directories that become empty by removing all entries in the
Subversion repository (but not the directory itself). The
placeholder files are also tracked and removed when no longer
necessary.
--placeholder-filename=<filename>
Set the name of placeholder files created by
--preserve-empty-dirs. Default: ".gitignore"
rebase
This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD and
rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it.
This works similarly to svn update or git pull except that it
preserves linear history with git rebase instead of git merge for
ease of dcommitting with git svn.
This accepts all options that git svn fetch and git rebase accept.
However, --fetch-all only fetches from the current [svn-remote],
and not all [svn-remote] definitions.
Like git rebase; this requires that the working tree be clean and
have no uncommitted changes.
This automatically updates the rev_map if needed (see
$GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* in the FILES section below for
details).
-l, --local
Do not fetch remotely; only run git rebase against the last
fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
dcommit
Commit each diff from the current branch directly to the SVN
repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or not
there is a diff between SVN and head). This will create a revision
in SVN for each commit in Git.
When an optional Git branch name (or a Git commit object name) is
specified as an argument, the subcommand works on the specified
branch, not on the current branch.
Use of dcommit is preferred to set-tree (below).
--no-rebase
After committing, do not rebase or reset.
--commit-url <URL>
Commit to this SVN URL (the full path). This is intended to
allow existing git svn repositories created with one transport
method (e.g. svn:// or http:// for anonymous read) to be
reused if a user is later given access to an alternate
transport method (e.g. svn+ssh:// or https://) for commit.
config key: svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
config key: svn.commiturl (overwrites all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl options)
Note that the SVN URL of the commiturl config key includes the
SVN branch. If you rather want to set the commit URL for an
entire SVN repository use svn-remote.<name>.pushurl instead.
Using this option for any other purpose (don't ask) is very
strongly discouraged.
--mergeinfo=<mergeinfo>
Add the given merge information during the dcommit (e.g.
--mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10"). All svn server versions can
store this information (as a property), and svn clients
starting from version 1.5 can make use of it. To specify merge
information from multiple branches, use a single space
character between the branches (--mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10
/branches/bar:3,5-6,8")
config key: svn.pushmergeinfo
This option will cause git-svn to attempt to automatically
populate the svn:mergeinfo property in the SVN repository when
possible. Currently, this can only be done when dcommitting
non-fast-forward merges where all parents but the first have
already been pushed into SVN.
--interactive
Ask the user to confirm that a patch set should actually be
sent to SVN. For each patch, one may answer "yes" (accept this
patch), "no" (discard this patch), "all" (accept all patches),
or "quit".
git svn dcommit returns immediately if answer is "no" or
"quit", without committing anything to SVN.
branch
Create a branch in the SVN repository.
-m, --message
Allows to specify the commit message.
-t, --tag
Create a tag by using the tags_subdir instead of the
branches_subdir specified during git svn init.
-d<path>, --destination=<path>
If more than one --branches (or --tags) option was given to the
init or clone command, you must provide the location of the
branch (or tag) you wish to create in the SVN repository.
<path> specifies which path to use to create the branch or tag
and should match the pattern on the left-hand side of one of
the configured branches or tags refspecs. You can see these
refspecs with the commands
git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.branches
git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.tags
where <name> is the name of the SVN repository as specified by
the -R option to init (or "svn" by default).
--username
Specify the SVN username to perform the commit as. This option
overrides the username configuration property.
--commit-url
Use the specified URL to connect to the destination Subversion
repository. This is useful in cases where the source SVN
repository is read-only. This option overrides configuration
property commiturl.
git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
--parents
Create parent folders. This parameter is equivalent to the
parameter --parents on svn cp commands and is useful for
non-standard repository layouts.
tag
Create a tag in the SVN repository. This is a shorthand for branch
-t.
log
This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn users
refer to -r/--revision numbers.
The following features from 'svn log' are supported:
-r <n>[:<n>], --revision=<n>[:<n>]
is supported, non-numeric args are not: HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV,
etc ...
-v, --verbose
it's not completely compatible with the --verbose output in svn
log, but reasonably close.
--limit=<n>
is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count merged/excluded
commits
--incremental
supported
New features:
--show-commit
shows the Git commit sha1, as well
--oneline
our version of --pretty=oneline
Note
SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The
regular svn client converts the UTC time to the local time (or
based on the TZ= environment). This command has the same
behaviour.
Any other arguments are passed directly to git log
blame
Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file.
The output of this mode is format-compatible with the output of
'svn blame' by default. Like the SVN blame command, local
uncommitted changes in the working tree are ignored; the version of
the file in the HEAD revision is annotated. Unknown arguments are
passed directly to git blame.
--git-format
Produce output in the same format as git blame, but with SVN
revision numbers instead of Git commit hashes. In this mode,
changes that haven't been committed to SVN (including local
working-copy edits) are shown as revision 0.
find-rev
When given an SVN revision number of the form rN, returns the
corresponding Git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched). When given a
tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
-B, --before
Don't require an exact match if given an SVN revision, instead
find the commit corresponding to the state of the SVN
repository (on the current branch) at the specified revision.
-A, --after
Don't require an exact match if given an SVN revision; if there
is not an exact match return the closest match searching
forward in the history.
set-tree
You should consider using dcommit instead of this command. Commit
specified commit or tree objects to SVN. This relies on your
imported fetch data being up-to-date. This makes absolutely no
attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it simply
overwrites files with those specified in the tree or commit. All
merging is assumed to have taken place independently of git svn
functions.
create-ignore
Recursively finds the svn:ignore property on directories and
creates matching .gitignore files. The resulting files are staged
to be committed, but are not committed. Use -r/--revision to refer
to a specific revision.
show-ignore
Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on directories.
The output is suitable for appending to the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude
file.
mkdirs
Attempts to recreate empty directories that core Git cannot track
based on information in $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files.
Empty directories are automatically recreated when using "git svn
clone" and "git svn rebase", so "mkdirs" is intended for use after
commands like "git checkout" or "git reset". (See the
svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs config file option for more
information.)
commit-diff
Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the command-line.
This command does not rely on being inside an git svn init-ed
repository. This command takes three arguments, (a) the original
tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the URL of the
target Subversion repository. The final argument (URL) may be
omitted if you are working from a git svn-aware repository (that
has been init-ed with git svn). The -r<revision> option is required
for this.
info
Shows information about a file or directory similar to what 'svn
info' provides. Does not currently support a -r/--revision
argument. Use the --url option to output only the value of the URL:
field.
proplist
Lists the properties stored in the Subversion repository about a
given file or directory. Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific
Subversion revision.
propget
Gets the Subversion property given as the first argument, for a
file. A specific revision can be specified with -r/--revision.
propset
Sets the Subversion property given as the first argument, to the
value given as the second argument for the file given as the third
argument.
Example:
git svn propset svn:keywords "FreeBSD=%H" devel/py-tipper/Makefile
This will set the property svn:keywords to FreeBSD=%H for the file
devel/py-tipper/Makefile.
show-externals
Shows the Subversion externals. Use -r/--revision to specify a
specific revision.
gc
Compress $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files and remove
$GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/index files.
reset
Undoes the effects of fetch back to the specified revision. This
allows you to re-fetch an SVN revision. Normally the contents of an
SVN revision should never change and reset should not be necessary.
However, if SVN permissions change, or if you alter your
--ignore-paths option, a fetch may fail with "not found in commit"
(file not previously visible) or "checksum mismatch" (missed a
modification). If the problem file cannot be ignored forever (with
--ignore-paths) the only way to repair the repo is to use reset.
Only the rev_map and refs/remotes/git-svn are changed (see
$GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* in the FILES section below for
details). Follow reset with a fetch and then git reset or git
rebase to move local branches onto the new tree.
-r <n>, --revision=<n>
Specify the most recent revision to keep. All later revisions
are discarded.
-p, --parent
Discard the specified revision as well, keeping the nearest
parent instead.
Example:
Assume you have local changes in "master", but you need to
refetch "r2".
r1---r2---r3 remotes/git-svn
\
A---B master
Fix the ignore-paths or SVN permissions problem that caused
"r2" to be incomplete in the first place. Then:
git svn reset -r2 -p
git svn fetch
r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
\
r2---r3---A---B master
Then fixup "master" with git rebase. Do NOT use git merge or
your history will not be compatible with a future dcommit!
git rebase --onto remotes/git-svn A^ master
r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
\
A'--B' master
OPTIONS
--shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody)],
--template=<template_directory>
Only used with the init command. These are passed directly to git
init.
-r <arg>, --revision <arg>
Used with the fetch command.
This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history to be
supported. $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
$NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch; but
is generally not recommended because history will be skipped and
lost.
-, --stdin
Only used with the set-tree command.
Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse order.
Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so git rev-list
--pretty=oneline output can be used.
--rmdir
Only used with the dcommit, set-tree and commit-diff commands.
Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
behind. SVN can version empty directories, and they are not removed
by default if there are no files left in them. Git cannot version
empty directories. Enabling this flag will make the commit to SVN
act like Git.
config key: svn.rmdir
-e, --edit
Only used with the dcommit, set-tree and commit-diff commands.
Edit the commit message before committing to SVN. This is off by
default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
tree objects.
config key: svn.edit
-l<num>, --find-copies-harder
Only used with the dcommit, set-tree and commit-diff commands.
They are both passed directly to git diff-tree; see git-diff-
tree(1) for more information.
config key: svn.l
config key: svn.findcopiesharder
-A<filename>, --authors-file=<filename>
Syntax is compatible with the file used by git cvsimport:
loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
If this option is specified and git svn encounters an SVN committer
name that does not exist in the authors-file, git svn will abort
operation. The user will then have to add the appropriate entry.
Re-running the previous git svn command after the authors-file is
modified should continue operation.
config key: svn.authorsfile
--authors-prog=<filename>
If this option is specified, for each SVN committer name that does
not exist in the authors file, the given file is executed with the
committer name as the first argument. The program is expected to
return a single line of the form "Name <email>", which will be
treated as if included in the authors file.
config key: svn.authorsProg
-q, --quiet
Make git svn less verbose. Specify a second time to make it even
less verbose.
-m, --merge, -s<strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>, -p, --preserve-merges
These are only used with the dcommit and rebase commands.
Passed directly to git rebase when using dcommit if a git reset
cannot be used (see dcommit).
-n, --dry-run
This can be used with the dcommit, rebase, branch and tag commands.
For dcommit, print out the series of Git arguments that would show
which diffs would be committed to SVN.
For rebase, display the local branch associated with the upstream
svn repository associated with the current branch and the URL of
svn repository that will be fetched from.
For branch and tag, display the urls that will be used for copying
when creating the branch or tag.
--use-log-author
When retrieving svn commits into Git (as part of fetch, rebase, or
dcommit operations), look for the first From: or Signed-off-by:
line in the log message and use that as the author string.
--add-author-from
When committing to svn from Git (as part of commit-diff, set-tree
or dcommit operations), if the existing log message doesn't already
have a From: or Signed-off-by: line, append a From: line based on
the Git commit's author string. If you use this, then
--use-log-author will retrieve a valid author string for all
commits.
ADVANCED OPTIONS
-i<GIT_SVN_ID>, --id <GIT_SVN_ID>
This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment). This
allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from when
tracking a single URL. The log and dcommit commands no longer
require this switch as an argument.
-R<remote name>, --svn-remote <remote name>
Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use, this
allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked. Default: "svn"
--follow-parent
This option is only relevant if we are tracking branches (using one
of the repository layout options --trunk, --tags, --branches,
--stdlayout). For each tracked branch, try to find out where its
revision was copied from, and set a suitable parent in the first
Git commit for the branch. This is especially helpful when we're
tracking a directory that has been moved around within the
repository. If this feature is disabled, the branches created by
git svn will all be linear and not share any history, meaning that
there will be no information on where branches were branched off or
merged. However, following long/convoluted histories can take a
long time, so disabling this feature may speed up the cloning
process. This feature is enabled by default, use --no-follow-parent
to disable it.
config key: svn.followparent
CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
svn.noMetadata, svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata
This gets rid of the git-svn-id: lines at the end of every commit.
This option can only be used for one-shot imports as git svn will
not be able to fetch again without metadata. Additionally, if you
lose your $GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* files, git svn will not be
able to rebuild them.
The git svn log command will not work on repositories using this,
either. Using this conflicts with the useSvmProps option for
(hopefully) obvious reasons.
This option is NOT recommended as it makes it difficult to track
down old references to SVN revision numbers in existing
documentation, bug reports and archives. If you plan to eventually
migrate from SVN to Git and are certain about dropping SVN history,
consider git-filter-branch(1) instead. filter-branch also allows
reformatting of metadata for ease-of-reading and rewriting
authorship info for non-"svn.authorsFile" users.
svn.useSvmProps, svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps
This allows git svn to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely that
the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK). The
property contains a repository UUID and a revision. We want to make
it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so introduce a
helper function that returns the original identity URL and UUID,
and use it when generating metadata in commit messages.
svn.useSvnsyncProps, svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops
Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users of the
svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and later.
svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot
This allows users to create repositories from alternate URLs. For
example, an administrator could run git svn on the server locally
(accessing via file://) but wish to distribute the repository with
a public http:// or svn:// URL in the metadata so users of it will
see the public URL.
svn-remote.<name>.rewriteUUID
Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users who need to
remap the UUID manually. This may be useful in situations where the
original UUID is not available via either useSvmProps or
useSvnsyncProps.
svn-remote.<name>.pushurl
Similar to Git's remote.<name>.pushurl, this key is designed to be
used in cases where url points to an SVN repository via a read-only
transport, to provide an alternate read/write transport. It is
assumed that both keys point to the same repository. Unlike
commiturl, pushurl is a base path. If either commiturl or pushurl
could be used, commiturl takes precedence.
svn.brokenSymlinkWorkaround
This disables potentially expensive checks to workaround broken
symlinks checked into SVN by broken clients. Set this option to
"false" if you track a SVN repository with many empty blobs that
are not symlinks. This option may be changed while git svn is
running and take effect on the next revision fetched. If unset, git
svn assumes this option to be "true".
svn.pathnameencoding
This instructs git svn to recode pathnames to a given encoding. It
can be used by windows users and by those who work in non-utf8
locales to avoid corrupted file names with non-ASCII characters.
Valid encodings are the ones supported by Perl's Encode module.
svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs
Normally, the "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase" commands attempt
to recreate empty directories that are in the Subversion
repository. If this option is set to "false", then empty
directories will only be created if the "git svn mkdirs" command is
run explicitly. If unset, git svn assumes this option to be "true".
Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, rewriteUUID, useSvnsyncProps and
useSvmProps options all affect the metadata generated and used by git
svn; they must be set in the configuration file before any history is
imported and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
Additionally, only one of these options can be used per svn-remote
section because they affect the git-svn-id: metadata line, except for
rewriteRoot and rewriteUUID which can be used together.
BASIC EXAMPLES
Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project
(ignoring tags and branches):
# Clone a repo (like git clone):
git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project/trunk
# Enter the newly cloned directory:
cd trunk
# You should be on master branch, double-check with 'git branch'
git branch
# Do some work and commit locally to Git:
git commit ...
# Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
# latest changes in SVN:
git svn rebase
# Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using Git) to SVN,
# as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
git svn dcommit
# Append svn:ignore settings to the default Git exclude file:
git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
(complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
# Clone a repo with standard SVN directory layout (like git clone):
git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project --stdlayout --prefix svn/
# Or, if the repo uses a non-standard directory layout:
git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project -T tr -b branch -t tag --prefix svn/
# View all branches and tags you have cloned:
git branch -r
# Create a new branch in SVN
git svn branch waldo
# Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
# with the appropriate name):
git reset --hard svn/trunk
# You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time. The usage
# of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
The initial git svn clone can be quite time-consuming (especially for
large Subversion repositories). If multiple people (or one person with
multiple machines) want to use git svn to interact with the same
Subversion repository, you can do the initial git svn clone to a
repository on a server and have each person clone that repository with
git clone:
# Do the initial import on a server
ssh server "cd /pub && git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project [options...]"
# Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
mkdir project
cd project
git init
git remote add origin server:/pub/project
git config --replace-all remote.origin.fetch '+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*'
git fetch
# Prevent fetch/pull from remote Git server in the future,
# we only want to use git svn for future updates
git config --remove-section remote.origin
# Create a local branch from one of the branches just fetched
git checkout -b master FETCH_HEAD
# Initialize 'git svn' locally (be sure to use the same URL and
# --stdlayout/-T/-b/-t/--prefix options as were used on server)
git svn init http://svn.example.com/project [options...]
# Pull the latest changes from Subversion
git svn rebase
REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
Prefer to use git svn rebase or git rebase, rather than git pull or git merge to synchronize unintegrated commits with a git svn branch. Doing so will keep the history of unintegrated commits linear with respect to the upstream SVN repository and allow the use of the preferred git svn dcommit subcommand to push unintegrated commits back into SVN. Originally, git svn recommended that developers pulled or merged from the git svn branch. This was because the author favored git svn set-tree B to commit a single head rather than the git svn set-tree A..B notation to commit multiple commits. Use of git pull or git merge with git svn set-tree A..B will cause non-linear history to be flattened when committing into SVN and this can lead to merge commits unexpectedly reversing previous commits in SVN.
MERGE TRACKING
While git svn can track copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened inside git back upstream to SVN users. Therefore it is advised that users keep history as linear as possible inside Git to ease compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
HANDLING OF SVN BRANCHES
If git svn is configured to fetch branches (and --follow-branches is in effect), it sometimes creates multiple Git branches for one SVN branch, where the additional branches have names of the form branchname@nnn (with nnn an SVN revision number). These additional branches are created if git svn cannot find a parent commit for the first commit in an SVN branch, to connect the branch to the history of the other branches. Normally, the first commit in an SVN branch consists of a copy operation. git svn will read this commit to get the SVN revision the branch was created from. It will then try to find the Git commit that corresponds to this SVN revision, and use that as the parent of the branch. However, it is possible that there is no suitable Git commit to serve as parent. This will happen, among other reasons, if the SVN branch is a copy of a revision that was not fetched by git svn (e.g. because it is an old revision that was skipped with --revision), or if in SVN a directory was copied that is not tracked by git svn (such as a branch that is not tracked at all, or a subdirectory of a tracked branch). In these cases, git svn will still create a Git branch, but instead of using an existing Git commit as the parent of the branch, it will read the SVN history of the directory the branch was copied from and create appropriate Git commits. This is indicated by the message "Initializing parent: <branchname>". Additionally, it will create a special branch named <branchname>@<SVN-Revision>, where <SVN-Revision> is the SVN revision number the branch was copied from. This branch will point to the newly created parent commit of the branch. If in SVN the branch was deleted and later recreated from a different version, there will be multiple such branches with an @. Note that this may mean that multiple Git commits are created for a single SVN revision. An example: in an SVN repository with a standard trunk/tags/branches layout, a directory trunk/sub is created in r.100. In r.200, trunk/sub is branched by copying it to branches/. git svn clone -s will then create a branch sub. It will also create new Git commits for r.100 through r.199 and use these as the history of branch sub. Thus there will be two Git commits for each revision from r.100 to r.199 (one containing trunk/, one containing trunk/sub/). Finally, it will create a branch sub@200 pointing to the new parent commit of branch sub (i.e. the commit for r.200 and trunk/sub/).
CAVEATS
For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with Subversion, it is
recommended that all git svn users clone, fetch and dcommit directly
from the SVN server, and avoid all git clone/pull/merge/push operations
between Git repositories and branches. The recommended method of
exchanging code between Git branches and users is git format-patch and
git am, or just 'dcommit'ing to the SVN repository.
Running git merge or git pull is NOT recommended on a branch you plan
to dcommit from because Subversion users cannot see any merges you've
made. Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a Git branch that is a
mirror of an SVN branch, dcommit may commit to the wrong branch.
If you do merge, note the following rule: git svn dcommit will attempt
to commit on top of the SVN commit named in
git log --grep=^git-svn-id: --first-parent -1
You must therefore ensure that the most recent commit of the branch you
want to dcommit to is the first parent of the merge. Chaos will ensue
otherwise, especially if the first parent is an older commit on the
same SVN branch.
git clone does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
any git svn metadata, or config. So repositories created and managed
with using git svn should use rsync for cloning, if cloning is to be
done at all.
Since dcommit uses rebase internally, any Git branches you git push to
before dcommit on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
on the remote repository. This is generally considered bad practice,
see the git-push(1) documentation for details.
Do not use the --amend option of git-commit(1) on a change you've
already dcommitted. It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
When cloning an SVN repository, if none of the options for describing
the repository layout is used (--trunk, --tags, --branches,
--stdlayout), git svn clone will create a Git repository with
completely linear history, where branches and tags appear as separate
directories in the working copy. While this is the easiest way to get a
copy of a complete repository, for projects with many branches it will
lead to a working copy many times larger than just the trunk. Thus for
projects using the standard directory structure (trunk/branches/tags),
it is recommended to clone with option --stdlayout. If the project uses
a non-standard structure, and/or if branches and tags are not required,
it is easiest to only clone one directory (typically trunk), without
giving any repository layout options. If the full history with branches
and tags is required, the options --trunk / --branches / --tags must be
used.
When using multiple --branches or --tags, git svn does not
automatically handle name collisions (for example, if two branches from
different paths have the same name, or if a branch and a tag have the
same name). In these cases, use init to set up your Git repository
then, before your first fetch, edit the $GIT_DIR/config file so that
the branches and tags are associated with different name spaces. For
example:
branches = stable/*:refs/remotes/svn/stable/*
branches = debug/*:refs/remotes/svn/debug/*
BUGS
We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable. Any unhandled properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log Renamed and copied directories are not detected by Git and hence not tracked when committing to SVN. I do not plan on adding support for this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all the possible corner cases (Git doesn't do it, either). Committing renamed and copied files is fully supported if they're similar enough for Git to detect them. In SVN, it is possible (though discouraged) to commit changes to a tag (because a tag is just a directory copy, thus technically the same as a branch). When cloning an SVN repository, git svn cannot know if such a commit to a tag will happen in the future. Thus it acts conservatively and imports all SVN tags as branches, prefixing the tag name with tags/.
CONFIGURATION
git svn stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the repository
$GIT_DIR/config file. It is similar the core Git [remote] sections
except fetch keys do not accept glob arguments; but they are instead
handled by the branches and tags keys. Since some SVN repositories are
oddly configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
listed below are allowed:
[svn-remote "project-a"]
url = http://server.org/svn
fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
branches = branches/release_*:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/release_*
branches = branches/re*se:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
Keep in mind that the * (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref (right of
the :) must be the farthest right path component; however the remote
wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's an independent path component
(surrounded by / or EOL). This type of configuration is not
automatically created by init and should be manually entered with a
text-editor or using git config.
Also note that only one asterisk is allowed per word. For example:
branches = branches/re*se:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
will match branches release, rese, re123se, however
branches = branches/re*s*e:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
will produce an error.
It is also possible to fetch a subset of branches or tags by using a
comma-separated list of names within braces. For example:
[svn-remote "huge-project"]
url = http://server.org/svn
fetch = trunk/src:refs/remotes/trunk
branches = branches/{red,green}/src:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
tags = tags/{1.0,2.0}/src:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
Multiple fetch, branches, and tags keys are supported:
[svn-remote "messy-repo"]
url = http://server.org/svn
fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
fetch = branches/demos/june-project-a-demo:refs/remotes/project-a/demos/june-demo
branches = branches/server/*:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
branches = branches/demos/2011/*:refs/remotes/project-a/2011-demos/*
tags = tags/server/*:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
Creating a branch in such a configuration requires disambiguating which
location to use using the -d or --destination flag:
$ git svn branch -d branches/server release-2-3-0
Note that git-svn keeps track of the highest revision in which a branch
or tag has appeared. If the subset of branches or tags is changed after
fetching, then $GIT_DIR/svn/.metadata must be manually edited to remove
(or reset) branches-maxRev and/or tags-maxRev as appropriate.
FILES
$GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.*
Mapping between Subversion revision numbers and Git commit names.
In a repository where the noMetadata option is not set, this can be
rebuilt from the git-svn-id: lines that are at the end of every
commit (see the svn.noMetadata section above for details).
git svn fetch and git svn rebase automatically update the rev_map
if it is missing or not up to date. git svn reset automatically
rewinds it.
SEE ALSO
git-rebase(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
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