NAME
git-cvsimport - Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to
hate
SYNOPSIS
git cvsimport [-o <branch-for-HEAD>] [-h] [-v] [-d <CVSROOT>]
[-A <author-conv-file>] [-p <options-for-cvsps>] [-P <file>]
[-C <git_repository>] [-z <fuzz>] [-i] [-k] [-u] [-s <subst>]
[-a] [-m] [-M <regex>] [-S <regex>] [-L <commitlimit>]
[-r <remote>] [-R] [<CVS_module>]
DESCRIPTION
Imports a CVS repository into git. It will either create a new
repository, or incrementally import into an existing one.
Splitting the CVS log into patch sets is done by cvsps. At least
version 2.1 is required.
WARNING: for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results.
Please see the section ISSUES for further reference.
You should never do any work of your own on the branches that are
created by git cvsimport. By default initial import will create and
populate a "master" branch from the CVS repository's main branch which
you're free to work with; after that, you need to git merge incremental
imports, or any CVS branches, yourself. It is advisable to specify a
named remote via -r to separate and protect the incoming branches.
If you intend to set up a shared public repository that all developers
can read/write, or if you want to use git-cvsserver(1), then you
probably want to make a bare clone of the imported repository, and use
the clone as the shared repository. See gitcvs-migration(7).
OPTIONS
-v
Verbosity: let cvsimport report what it is doing.
-d <CVSROOT>
The root of the CVS archive. May be local (a simple path) or
remote; currently, only the :local:, :ext: and :pserver: access
methods are supported. If not given, git cvsimport will try to read
it from CVS/Root. If no such file exists, it checks for the CVSROOT
environment variable.
<CVS_module>
The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>. If not
given, git cvsimport tries to read it from CVS/Repository.
-C <target-dir>
The git repository to import to. If the directory doesn't exist, it
will be created. Default is the current directory.
-r <remote>
The git remote to import this CVS repository into. Moves all CVS
branches into remotes/<remote>/<branch> akin to the way git clone
uses origin by default.
-o <branch-for-HEAD>
When no remote is specified (via -r) the HEAD branch from CVS is
imported to the origin branch within the git repository, as HEAD
already has a special meaning for git. When a remote is specified
the HEAD branch is named remotes/<remote>/master mirroring git
clone behaviour. Use this option if you want to import into a
different branch.
Use -o master for continuing an import that was initially done by
the old cvs2git tool.
-i
Import-only: don't perform a checkout after importing. This option
ensures the working directory and index remain untouched and will
not create them if they do not exist.
-k
Kill keywords: will extract files with -kk from the CVS archive to
avoid noisy changesets. Highly recommended, but off by default to
preserve compatibility with early imported trees.
-u
Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots.
-s <subst>
Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst>
-p <options-for-cvsps>
Additional options for cvsps. The options -u and -A are implicit
and should not be used here.
If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma.
-z <fuzz>
Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset,
cvsps defaults to 300s.
-P <cvsps-output-file>
Instead of calling cvsps, read the provided cvsps output file.
Useful for debugging or when cvsps is being handled outside
cvsimport.
-m
Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message. This option
will enable default regexes that try to capture the source branch
name from the commit message.
-M <regex>
Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message with a custom
regex. It can be used with -m to enable the default regexes as
well. You must escape forward slashes.
The regex must capture the source branch name in $1.
This option can be used several times to provide several detection
regexes.
-S <regex>
Skip paths matching the regex.
-a
Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default
skips commits that have a timestamp less than 10 minutes ago.
-L <limit>
Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where
cvsimport leaks memory.
-A <author-conv-file>
CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its commit logs.
Using this option and an author-conv-file in this format
exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org>
git cvsimport will make it appear as those authors had their
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly all along.
For convenience, this data is saved to $GIT_DIR/cvs-authors each
time the -A option is provided and read from that same file each
time git cvsimport is run.
It is not recommended to use this feature if you intend to export
changes back to CVS again later with git cvsexportcommit.
-R
Generate a $GIT_DIR/cvs-revisions file containing a mapping from
CVS revision numbers to newly-created Git commit IDs. The generated
file will contain one line for each (filename, revision) pair
imported; each line will look like
src/widget.c 1.1 1d862f173cdc7325b6fa6d2ae1cfd61fd1b512b7
The revision data is appended to the file if it already exists, for
use when doing incremental imports.
This option may be useful if you have CVS revision numbers stored
in commit messages, bug-tracking systems, email archives, and the
like.
-h
Print a short usage message and exit.
OUTPUT
If -v is specified, the script reports what it is doing.
Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting
with a zero exit status.
ISSUES
Problems related to timestamps:
o If timestamps of commits in the cvs repository are not stable
enough to be used for ordering commits changes may show up in the
wrong order.
o If any files were ever "cvs import"ed more than once (e.g., import
of more than one vendor release) the HEAD contains the wrong
content.
o If the timestamp order of different files cross the revision order
within the commit matching time window the order of commits may be
wrong.
Problems related to branches:
o Branches on which no commits have been made are not imported.
o All files from the branching point are added to a branch even if
never added in cvs.
o This applies to files added to the source branch after a daughter
branch was created: if previously no commit was made on the
daughter branch they will erroneously be added to the daughter
branch in git.
Problems related to tags:
o Multiple tags on the same revision are not imported.
If you suspect that any of these issues may apply to the repository you
want to import consider using these alternative tools which proved to
be more stable in practice:
o cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), http://cvs2svn.tigris.org
o parsecvs, http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~keithp/parsecvs
AUTHOR
Written by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de[1]>, with help from
various participants of the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org[2]>.
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de[1]>.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
NOTES
1. smurf@smurf.noris.de
mailto:smurf@smurf.noris.de
2. git@vger.kernel.org
mailto:git@vger.kernel.org