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