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 provides a bidirectional flow of changes between a Subversion and a git
18 'git-svn' can track a single Subversion branch simply by using a
19 URL to the branch, follow branches laid out in the Subversion recommended
20 method (trunk, branches, tags directories) with the --stdlayout option, or
21 follow branches in any layout with the -T/-t/-b options (see options to
22 'init' below, and also the 'clone' command).
24 Once tracking a Subversion branch (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.
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 When retrieving svn commits into git (as part of fetch, rebase, or
66 dcommit operations), look for the first From: or Signed-off-by: line
67 in the log message and use that as the author string.
69 When committing to svn from git (as part of commit or dcommit
70 operations), if the existing log message doesn't already have a
71 From: or Signed-off-by: line, append a From: line based on the
72 git commit's author string. If you use this, then --use-log-author
73 will retrieve a valid author string for all commits.
75 For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http,
76 https, and plain svn), specify the username. For other
77 transports (eg svn+ssh://), you must include the username in
78 the URL, eg svn+ssh://foo@svn.bar.com/project
80 This allows one to specify a prefix which is prepended
81 to the names of remotes if trunk/branches/tags are
82 specified. The prefix does not automatically include a
83 trailing slash, so be sure you include one in the
84 argument if that is what you want. If --branches/-b is
85 specified, the prefix must include a trailing slash.
86 Setting a prefix is useful if you wish to track multiple
87 projects that share a common repository.
88 --ignore-paths=<regex>;;
89 When passed to 'init' or 'clone' this regular expression will
90 be preserved as a config key. See 'fetch' for a description
94 Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
95 tracking. The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
96 .git/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
100 Store Git commit times in the local timezone instead of UTC. This
101 makes 'git-log' (even without --date=local) show the same times
102 that `svn log` would in the local timezone.
105 Fetch only from the SVN parent of the current HEAD.
107 This doesn't interfere with interoperating with the Subversion
108 repository you cloned from, but if you wish for your local Git
109 repository to be able to interoperate with someone else's local Git
110 repository, either don't use this option or you should both use it in
111 the same local timezone.
113 --ignore-paths=<regex>;;
114 This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will
115 cause skipping of all matching paths from checkout from SVN.
116 The '--ignore-paths' option should match for every 'fetch'
117 (including automatic fetches due to 'clone', 'dcommit',
118 'rebase', etc) on a given repository.
120 config key: svn-remote.<name>.ignore-paths
122 If the ignore-paths config key is set and the command
123 line option is also given, both regular expressions
128 --ignore-paths="^doc" - skip "doc*" directory for every
131 --ignore-paths="^[^/]+/(?:branches|tags)" - skip
132 "branches" and "tags" of first level directories.
135 Runs 'init' and 'fetch'. It will automatically create a
136 directory based on the basename of the URL passed to it;
137 or if a second argument is passed; it will create a directory
138 and work within that. It accepts all arguments that the
139 'init' and 'fetch' commands accept; with the exception of
140 '--fetch-all'. After a repository is cloned, the 'fetch'
141 command will be able to update revisions without affecting
142 the working tree; and the 'rebase' command will be able
143 to update the working tree with the latest changes.
146 This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD
147 and rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it.
149 This works similarly to `svn update` or 'git-pull' except that
150 it preserves linear history with 'git-rebase' instead of
151 'git-merge' for ease of dcommitting with 'git-svn'.
153 This accepts all options that 'git-svn fetch' and 'git-rebase'
154 accept. However, '--fetch-all' only fetches from the current
155 [svn-remote], and not all [svn-remote] definitions.
157 Like 'git-rebase'; this requires that the working tree be clean
158 and have no uncommitted changes.
162 Do not fetch remotely; only run 'git-rebase' against the
163 last fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
166 Commit each diff from a specified head directly to the SVN
167 repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or
168 not there is a diff between SVN and head). This will create
169 a revision in SVN for each commit in git.
170 It is recommended that you run 'git-svn' fetch and rebase (not
171 pull or merge) your commits against the latest changes in the
173 An optional revision or branch argument may be specified, and
174 causes 'git-svn' to do all work on that revision/branch
176 This is advantageous over 'set-tree' (below) because it produces
177 cleaner, more linear history.
180 After committing, do not rebase or reset.
182 Commit to this SVN URL (the full path). This is intended to
183 allow existing git-svn repositories created with one transport
184 method (e.g. `svn://` or `http://` for anonymous read) to be
185 reused if a user is later given access to an alternate transport
186 method (e.g. `svn+ssh://` or `https://`) for commit.
188 config key: svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
190 config key: svn.commiturl (overwrites all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl options)
192 Using this option for any other purpose (don't ask)
193 is very strongly discouraged.
197 Create a branch in the SVN repository.
201 Allows to specify the commit message.
205 Create a tag by using the tags_subdir instead of the branches_subdir
206 specified during git svn init.
209 Create a tag in the SVN repository. This is a shorthand for
213 This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn
214 users refer to -r/--revision numbers.
216 The following features from `svn log' are supported:
219 --revision=<n>[:<n>];;
220 is supported, non-numeric args are not:
221 HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ...
223 it's not completely compatible with the --verbose
224 output in svn log, but reasonably close.
226 is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count
227 merged/excluded commits
236 shows the git commit sha1, as well
238 our version of --pretty=oneline
241 NOTE: SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The regular svn
242 client converts the UTC time to the local time (or based on the TZ=
243 environment). This command has the same behaviour.
245 Any other arguments are passed directly to 'git-log'
248 Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file. The
249 output of this mode is format-compatible with the output of
250 `svn blame' by default. Like the SVN blame command,
251 local uncommitted changes in the working copy are ignored;
252 the version of the file in the HEAD revision is annotated. Unknown
253 arguments are passed directly to 'git-blame'.
256 Produce output in the same format as 'git-blame', but with
257 SVN revision numbers instead of git commit hashes. In this mode,
258 changes that haven't been committed to SVN (including local
259 working-copy edits) are shown as revision 0.
263 When given an SVN revision number of the form 'rN', returns the
264 corresponding git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
265 tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched). When given a
266 tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
269 You should consider using 'dcommit' instead of this command.
270 Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN. This relies on
271 your imported fetch data being up-to-date. This makes
272 absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
273 simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
274 commit. All merging is assumed to have taken place
275 independently of 'git-svn' functions.
278 Recursively finds the svn:ignore property on directories and
279 creates matching .gitignore files. The resulting files are staged to
280 be committed, but are not committed. Use -r/--revision to refer to a
284 Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
285 directories. The output is suitable for appending to
286 the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
289 Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
290 command-line. This command does not rely on being inside an `git-svn
291 init`-ed repository. This command takes three arguments, (a) the
292 original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the
293 URL of the target Subversion repository. The final argument
294 (URL) may be omitted if you are working from a 'git-svn'-aware
295 repository (that has been `init`-ed with 'git-svn').
296 The -r<revision> option is required for this.
299 Shows information about a file or directory similar to what
300 `svn info' provides. Does not currently support a -r/--revision
301 argument. Use the --url option to output only the value of the
305 Lists the properties stored in the Subversion repository about a
306 given file or directory. Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific
310 Gets the Subversion property given as the first argument, for a
311 file. A specific revision can be specified with -r/--revision.
314 Shows the Subversion externals. Use -r/--revision to specify a
323 --shared[={false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody}]::
324 --template=<template_directory>::
325 Only used with the 'init' command.
326 These are passed directly to 'git-init'.
331 Used with the 'fetch' command.
333 This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history
334 to be supported. $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
335 $NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
337 This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch;
338 but is generally not recommended because history will be skipped
344 Only used with the 'set-tree' command.
346 Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
347 order. Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
348 'git-rev-list --pretty=oneline' output can be used.
352 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
354 Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
355 behind. SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
356 removed by default if there are no files left in them. git
357 cannot version empty directories. Enabling this flag will make
358 the commit to SVN act like git.
360 config key: svn.rmdir
365 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
367 Edit the commit message before committing to SVN. This is off by
368 default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
374 --find-copies-harder::
376 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
378 They are both passed directly to 'git-diff-tree'; see
379 linkgit:git-diff-tree[1] for more information.
383 config key: svn.findcopiesharder
386 --authors-file=<filename>::
388 Syntax is compatible with the file used by 'git-cvsimport':
390 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
391 loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
392 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
394 If this option is specified and 'git-svn' encounters an SVN
395 committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, 'git-svn'
396 will abort operation. The user will then have to add the
397 appropriate entry. Re-running the previous 'git-svn' command
398 after the authors-file is modified should continue operation.
400 config key: svn.authorsfile
402 --authors-prog=<filename>::
404 If this option is specified, for each SVN committer name that does not
405 exist in the authors file, the given file is executed with the committer
406 name as the first argument. The program is expected to return a single
407 line of the form "Name <email>", which will be treated as if included in
412 Make 'git-svn' less verbose. Specify a second time to make it
416 --repack-flags=<flags>::
418 These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches
421 --repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
422 to fetch before repacking. This defaults to repacking every
423 1000 commits fetched if no argument is specified.
425 --repack-flags are passed directly to 'git-repack'.
428 config key: svn.repack
429 config key: svn.repackflags
434 --strategy=<strategy>::
436 These are only used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
438 Passed directly to 'git-rebase' when using 'dcommit' if a
439 'git-reset' cannot be used (see 'dcommit').
444 This can be used with the 'dcommit', 'rebase', 'branch' and 'tag'
447 For 'dcommit', print out the series of git arguments that would show
448 which diffs would be committed to SVN.
450 For 'rebase', display the local branch associated with the upstream svn
451 repository associated with the current branch and the URL of svn
452 repository that will be fetched from.
454 For 'branch' and 'tag', display the urls that will be used for copying when
455 creating the branch or tag.
466 This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment). This
467 allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from
468 when tracking a single URL. The 'log' and 'dcommit' commands
469 no longer require this switch as an argument.
472 --svn-remote <remote name>::
473 Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use,
474 this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked.
478 This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory
479 that has been moved around within the repository, or if we
480 started tracking a branch and never tracked the trunk it was
481 descended from. This feature is enabled by default, use
482 --no-follow-parent to disable it.
484 config key: svn.followparent
487 CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
488 ------------------------
492 svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata::
494 This gets rid of the 'git-svn-id:' lines at the end of every commit.
496 If you lose your .git/svn/git-svn/.rev_db file, 'git-svn' will not
497 be able to rebuild it and you won't be able to fetch again,
498 either. This is fine for one-shot imports.
500 The 'git-svn log' command will not work on repositories using
501 this, either. Using this conflicts with the 'useSvmProps'
502 option for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
505 svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps::
507 This allows 'git-svn' to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
508 mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
510 If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely
511 that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK).
512 The property contains a repository UUID and a revision. We want
513 to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so
514 introduce a helper function that returns the original identity
515 URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit
518 svn.useSvnsyncProps::
519 svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops::
520 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users
521 of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and
524 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot::
525 This allows users to create repositories from alternate
526 URLs. For example, an administrator could run 'git-svn' on the
527 server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute
528 the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the
529 metadata so users of it will see the public URL.
531 svn.brokenSymlinkWorkaround::
532 This disables potentially expensive checks to workaround broken symlinks
533 checked into SVN by broken clients. Set this option to "false" if you
534 track a SVN repository with many empty blobs that are not symlinks.
535 This option may be changed while "git-svn" is running and take effect on
536 the next revision fetched. If unset, git-svn assumes this option to be
541 Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps
542 options all affect the metadata generated and used by 'git-svn'; they
543 *must* be set in the configuration file before any history is imported
544 and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
546 Additionally, only one of these four options can be used per-svn-remote
547 section because they affect the 'git-svn-id:' metadata line.
553 Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project:
555 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
556 # Clone a repo (like git clone):
557 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project/trunk
558 # Enter the newly cloned directory:
560 # You should be on master branch, double-check with git-branch
562 # Do some work and commit locally to git:
564 # Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
565 # latest changes in SVN:
567 # Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using git) to SVN,
568 # as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
570 # Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file:
571 git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
572 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
574 Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
575 (complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
577 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
578 # Clone a repo (like git clone):
579 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project -T trunk -b branches -t tags
580 # View all branches and tags you have cloned:
582 # Create a new branch in SVN
584 # Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
585 # with the appropriate name):
586 git reset --hard remotes/trunk
587 # You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time. The usage
588 # of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
589 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
591 The initial 'git-svn clone' can be quite time-consuming
592 (especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple
593 people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use
594 'git-svn' to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can
595 do the initial 'git-svn clone' to a repository on a server and
596 have each person clone that repository with 'git-clone':
598 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
599 # Do the initial import on a server
600 ssh server "cd /pub && git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project
601 # Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
605 git remote add origin server:/pub/project
606 git config --add remote.origin.fetch '+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*'
608 # Create a local branch from one of the branches just fetched
609 git checkout -b master FETCH_HEAD
610 # Initialize git-svn locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
611 git svn init http://svn.example.com/project
612 # Pull the latest changes from Subversion
614 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
616 REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
617 ---------------------
619 Originally, 'git-svn' recommended that the 'remotes/git-svn' branch be
620 pulled or merged from. This is because the author favored
621 `git svn set-tree B` to commit a single head rather than the
622 `git svn set-tree A..B` notation to commit multiple commits.
624 If you use `git svn set-tree A..B` to commit several diffs and you do
625 not have the latest remotes/git-svn merged into my-branch, you should
626 use `git svn rebase` to update your work branch instead of `git pull` or
627 `git merge`. `pull`/`merge` can cause non-linear history to be flattened
628 when committing into SVN, which can lead to merge commits reversing
629 previous commits in SVN.
633 Merge tracking in Subversion is lacking and doing branched development
634 with Subversion can be cumbersome as a result. While 'git-svn' can track
635 copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a
636 standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened
637 inside git back upstream to SVN users. Therefore it is advised that
638 users keep history as linear as possible inside git to ease
639 compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
644 For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with a less-capable system
645 (SVN), it is recommended that all 'git-svn' users clone, fetch and dcommit
646 directly from the SVN server, and avoid all 'git-clone'/'pull'/'merge'/'push'
647 operations between git repositories and branches. The recommended
648 method of exchanging code between git branches and users is
649 'git-format-patch' and 'git-am', or just 'dcommit'ing to the SVN repository.
651 Running 'git-merge' or 'git-pull' is NOT recommended on a branch you
652 plan to 'dcommit' from. Subversion does not represent merges in any
653 reasonable or useful fashion; so users using Subversion cannot see any
654 merges you've made. Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a git branch
655 that is a mirror of an SVN branch, 'dcommit' may commit to the wrong
658 'git-clone' does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
659 any 'git-svn' metadata, or config. So repositories created and managed with
660 using 'git-svn' should use 'rsync' for cloning, if cloning is to be done
663 Since 'dcommit' uses rebase internally, any git branches you 'git-push' to
664 before 'dcommit' on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
665 on the remote repository. This is generally considered bad practice,
666 see the linkgit:git-push[1] documentation for details.
668 Do not use the --amend option of linkgit:git-commit[1] on a change you've
669 already dcommitted. It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
670 you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
671 dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
676 We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable. Any unhandled
677 properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log
679 Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
680 tracked when committing to SVN. I do not plan on adding support for
681 this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
682 the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either). Committing
683 renamed and copied files are fully supported if they're similar enough
684 for git to detect them.
689 'git-svn' stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the
690 repository .git/config file. It is similar the core git
691 [remote] sections except 'fetch' keys do not accept glob
692 arguments; but they are instead handled by the 'branches'
693 and 'tags' keys. Since some SVN repositories are oddly
694 configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
695 listed below are allowed:
697 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
698 [svn-remote "project-a"]
699 url = http://server.org/svn
700 fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
701 branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
702 tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
703 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
705 Keep in mind that the '\*' (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref
706 (right of the ':') *must* be the farthest right path component;
707 however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's an
708 independent path component (surrounded by '/' or EOL). This
709 type of configuration is not automatically created by 'init' and
710 should be manually entered with a text-editor or using 'git-config'.
714 linkgit:git-rebase[1]
718 Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
722 Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.