GIT-SVN(1) Git Manual GIT-SVN(1)NAME
git-svn - Bidirectional operation between a single Subversion branch
and git
SYNOPSIS
git-svn <command> [options] [arguments]
DESCRIPTION
git-svn is a simple conduit for changesets between Subversion and git.
It is not to be confused with git-svnimport(1), which is read-only.
git-svn was originally designed for an individual developer who wants a
bidirectional flow of changesets between a single branch in Subversion
and an arbitrary number of branches in git. Since its inception,
git-svn has gained the ability to track multiple branches in a manner
similar to git-svnimport.
git-svn is especially useful when it comes to tracking repositories not
organized in the way Subversion developers recommend (trunk, branches,
tags directories).
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). 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.
--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.
--username=<USER>
For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http,
https, and plain svn), specify the username. For other
transports (eg svn+ssh://), you must include the username
in the URL, eg 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 is useful if you wish to track multiple
projects that share a common repository.
fetch Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
tracking. The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
.git/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
argument.
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. 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.
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 dcommiting with git-svn.
This accepts all options that git-svn fetch and git-rebase
accepts. 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.
-l , --local
Do not fetch remotely; only run git-rebase against the
last fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
dcommit
Commit each diff from a specified head 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. It is recommended that
you run git-svn fetch and rebase (not pull or merge) your
commits against the latest changes in the SVN repository. An
optional command-line argument may be specified as an
alternative to HEAD. This is advantageous over set-tree (below)
because it produces cleaner, more linear history.
--no-rebase
After committing, do not rebase or reset.
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:
--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.
This is identical to `git blame', but SVN revision numbers are
shown instead of git commit hashes.
All arguments are passed directly to `git blame'.
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.
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.
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.
commit-diff
Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
command-line. This command is intended for interoperability with
git-svnimport and 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.
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(1).
-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 files used by git-svnimport and
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
-q , --quiet
Make git-svn less verbose.
--repack[=<n>] , --repack-flags=<flags>
These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches with
many revisions.
--repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
to fetch before repacking. This defaults to repacking every 1000
commits fetched if no argument is specified.
--repack-flags are passed directly to git-repack(1).
config key: svn.repack
config key: svn.repackflags
-m , --merge , -s<strategy> , --strategy=<strategy>
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 is only used with the dcommit command.
Print out the series of git arguments that would show which
diffs would be committed to SVN.
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 is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory that
has been moved around within the repository, or if we started
tracking a branch and never tracked the trunk it was descended
from. 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.
If you lose your .git/svn/git-svn/.rev_db file, git-svn will not
be able to rebuild it and you won't be able to fetch again,
either. This is fine for one-shot imports.
The git-svn log command will not work on repositories using
this, either. Using this conflicts with the useSvmProps option
for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
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.
Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, 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 four options can be used
per-svn-remote section because they affect the git-svn-id:
metadata line.
BASIC EXAMPLES
Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project:
# Clone a repo (like git clone):
git-svn clone http://svn.foo.org/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 (like git clone):
git-svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project -T trunk -b branches -t tags
# View all branches and tags you have cloned:
git branch -r
# Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
# with the appropriate name):
git reset --hard remotes/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.foo.org/project
# 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 --add remote.origin.fetch=+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*
git fetch
# Initialize git-svn locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
git-svn init http://svn.foo.org/project
# Pull the latest changes from Subversion
git-svn rebase
REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
Originally, git-svn recommended that the remotes/git-svn branch be
pulled or merged from. This is 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.
If you use git-svn set-tree A..B to commit several diffs and you do not
have the latest remotes/git-svn merged into my-branch, you should use
git-svn rebase to update your work branch instead of git pull or git
merge. pull/merge can cause non-linear history to be flattened when
committing into SVN, which can lead to merge commits reversing previous
commits in SVN.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Merge tracking in Subversion is lacking and doing branched development
with Subversion can be cumbersome as a result. 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).
CAVEATS
For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with a less-capable
system (SVN), 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 dcommiting
to the SVN repository.
Running git-merge or git-pull is NOT recommended on a branch you plan
to dcommit from. Subversion does not represent merges in any reasonable
or useful fashion; so users using Subversion 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.
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(1) 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.
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 are fully supported if they're similar enough
for git to detect them.
CONFIGURATION
git-svn stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the repository
.git/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
branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
trunk = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
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 own 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(1)SEE ALSOgit-rebase(1)AUTHOR
Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
DOCUMENTATION
Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
Git 1.5.5.2 10/21/2008 GIT-SVN(1)