Documentation/git-cvsimport.txt

   1 git-cvsimport(1)
   2 ================
   3
   4 NAME
   5 ----
   6 git-cvsimport - Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to hate
   7
   8
   9 SYNOPSIS
  10 --------
  11 [verse]
  12 'git cvsimport' [-o <branch-for-HEAD>] [-h] [-v] [-d <CVSROOT>]
  13               [-A <author-conv-file>] [-p <options-for-cvsps>] [-P <file>]
  14               [-C <git_repository>] [-z <fuzz>] [-i] [-k] [-u] [-s <subst>]
  15               [-a] [-m] [-M <regex>] [-S <regex>] [-L <commitlimit>]
  16               [-r <remote>] [-R] [<CVS_module>]
  17
  18
  19 DESCRIPTION
  20 -----------
  21 Imports a CVS repository into git. It will either create a new
  22 repository, or incrementally import into an existing one.
  23
  24 Splitting the CVS log into patch sets is done by 'cvsps'.
  25 At least version 2.1 is required.
  26
  27 *WARNING:* for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results.
  28 Please see the section <<issues,ISSUES>> for further reference.
  29
  30 You should *never* do any work of your own on the branches that are
  31 created by 'git cvsimport'.  By default initial import will create and populate a
  32 "master" branch from the CVS repository's main branch which you're free
  33 to work with; after that, you need to 'git merge' incremental imports, or
  34 any CVS branches, yourself.  It is advisable to specify a named remote via
  35 -r to separate and protect the incoming branches.
  36
  37 If you intend to set up a shared public repository that all developers can
  38 read/write, or if you want to use linkgit:git-cvsserver[1], then you
  39 probably want to make a bare clone of the imported repository,
  40 and use the clone as the shared repository.
  41 See linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7].
  42
  43
  44 OPTIONS
  45 -------
  46 -v::
  47         Verbosity: let 'cvsimport' report what it is doing.
  48
  49 -d <CVSROOT>::
  50         The root of the CVS archive. May be local (a simple path) or remote;
  51         currently, only the :local:, :ext: and :pserver: access methods
  52         are supported. If not given, 'git cvsimport' will try to read it
  53         from `CVS/Root`. If no such file exists, it checks for the
  54         `CVSROOT` environment variable.
  55
  56 <CVS_module>::
  57         The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>.
  58         If not given, 'git cvsimport' tries to read it from
  59         `CVS/Repository`.
  60
  61 -C <target-dir>::
  62         The git repository to import to.  If the directory doesn't
  63         exist, it will be created.  Default is the current directory.
  64
  65 -r <remote>::
  66         The git remote to import this CVS repository into.
  67         Moves all CVS branches into remotes/<remote>/<branch>
  68         akin to the way 'git clone' uses 'origin' by default.
  69
  70 -o <branch-for-HEAD>::
  71         When no remote is specified (via -r) the 'HEAD' branch
  72         from CVS is imported to the 'origin' branch within the git
  73         repository, as 'HEAD' already has a special meaning for git.
  74         When a remote is specified the 'HEAD' branch is named
  75         remotes/<remote>/master mirroring 'git clone' behaviour.
  76         Use this option if you want to import into a different
  77         branch.
  78 +
  79 Use '-o master' for continuing an import that was initially done by
  80 the old cvs2git tool.
  81
  82 -i::
  83         Import-only: don't perform a checkout after importing.  This option
  84         ensures the working directory and index remain untouched and will
  85         not create them if they do not exist.
  86
  87 -k::
  88         Kill keywords: will extract files with '-kk' from the CVS archive
  89         to avoid noisy changesets. Highly recommended, but off by default
  90         to preserve compatibility with early imported trees.
  91
  92 -u::
  93         Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots.
  94
  95 -s <subst>::
  96         Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst>
  97
  98 -p <options-for-cvsps>::
  99         Additional options for cvsps.
 100         The options '-u' and '-A' are implicit and should not be used here.
 101 +
 102 If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma.
 103
 104 -z <fuzz>::
 105         Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset,
 106         cvsps defaults to 300s.
 107
 108 -P <cvsps-output-file>::
 109         Instead of calling cvsps, read the provided cvsps output file. Useful
 110         for debugging or when cvsps is being handled outside cvsimport.
 111
 112 -m::
 113         Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message. This option
 114         will enable default regexes that try to capture the source
 115         branch name from the commit message.
 116
 117 -M <regex>::
 118         Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message with a custom
 119         regex. It can be used with '-m' to enable the default regexes
 120         as well. You must escape forward slashes.
 121 +
 122 The regex must capture the source branch name in $1.
 123 +
 124 This option can be used several times to provide several detection regexes.
 125
 126 -S <regex>::
 127         Skip paths matching the regex.
 128
 129 -a::
 130         Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default
 131         skips commits that have a timestamp less than 10 minutes ago.
 132
 133 -L <limit>::
 134         Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where
 135         cvsimport leaks memory.
 136
 137 -A <author-conv-file>::
 138         CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its
 139         commit logs. Using this option and an author-conv-file
 140         in this format
 141 +
 142 ---------
 143         exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
 144         spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org>
 145
 146 ---------
 147 +
 148 'git cvsimport' will make it appear as those authors had
 149 their GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly
 150 all along.
 151 +
 152 For convenience, this data is saved to `$GIT_DIR/cvs-authors`
 153 each time the '-A' option is provided and read from that same
 154 file each time 'git cvsimport' is run.
 155 +
 156 It is not recommended to use this feature if you intend to
 157 export changes back to CVS again later with
 158 'git cvsexportcommit'.
 159
 160 -R::
 161         Generate a `$GIT_DIR/cvs-revisions` file containing a mapping from CVS
 162         revision numbers to newly-created Git commit IDs.  The generated file
 163         will contain one line for each (filename, revision) pair imported;
 164         each line will look like
 165 +
 166 ---------
 167 src/widget.c 1.1 1d862f173cdc7325b6fa6d2ae1cfd61fd1b512b7
 168 ---------
 169 +
 170 The revision data is appended to the file if it already exists, for use when
 171 doing incremental imports.
 172 +
 173 This option may be useful if you have CVS revision numbers stored in commit
 174 messages, bug-tracking systems, email archives, and the like.
 175
 176 -h::
 177         Print a short usage message and exit.
 178
 179 OUTPUT
 180 ------
 181 If '-v' is specified, the script reports what it is doing.
 182
 183 Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting with
 184 a zero exit status.
 185
 186 [[issues]]
 187 ISSUES
 188 ------
 189 Problems related to timestamps:
 190
 191  * If timestamps of commits in the CVS repository are not stable enough
 192    to be used for ordering commits changes may show up in the wrong
 193    order.
 194  * If any files were ever "cvs import"ed more than once (e.g., import of
 195    more than one vendor release) the HEAD contains the wrong content.
 196  * If the timestamp order of different files cross the revision order
 197    within the commit matching time window the order of commits may be
 198    wrong.
 199
 200 Problems related to branches:
 201
 202  * Branches on which no commits have been made are not imported.
 203  * All files from the branching point are added to a branch even if
 204    never added in CVS.
 205  * This applies to files added to the source branch *after* a daughter
 206    branch was created: if previously no commit was made on the daughter
 207    branch they will erroneously be added to the daughter branch in git.
 208
 209 Problems related to tags:
 210
 211 * Multiple tags on the same revision are not imported.
 212
 213 If you suspect that any of these issues may apply to the repository you
 214 want to import consider using these alternative tools which proved to be
 215 more stable in practice:
 216
 217 * cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), `http://cvs2svn.tigris.org`
 218 * parsecvs, `http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~keithp/parsecvs`
 219
 220 Author
 221 ------
 222 Written by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>, with help from
 223 various participants of the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 224
 225 Documentation
 226 --------------
 227 Documentation by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>.
 228
 229 GIT
 230 ---
 231 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite