6 git-cvsimport - Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to hate
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>]
21 Imports a CVS repository into git. It will either create a new
22 repository, or incrementally import into an existing one.
24 Splitting the CVS log into patch sets is done by 'cvsps'.
25 At least version 2.1 is required.
27 *WARNING:* for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results.
28 Please see the section <<issues,ISSUES>> for further reference.
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.
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].
47 Verbosity: let 'cvsimport' report what it is doing.
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.
57 The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>.
58 If not given, 'git cvsimport' tries to read it from
62 The git repository to import to. If the directory doesn't
63 exist, it will be created. Default is the current directory.
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.
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
79 Use '-o master' for continuing an import that was initially done by
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.
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.
93 Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots.
96 Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst>
98 -p <options-for-cvsps>::
99 Additional options for cvsps.
100 The options '-u' and '-A' are implicit and should not be used here.
102 If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma.
105 Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset,
106 cvsps defaults to 300s.
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.
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.
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.
122 The regex must capture the source branch name in $1.
124 This option can be used several times to provide several detection regexes.
127 Skip paths matching the regex.
130 Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default
131 skips commits that have a timestamp less than 10 minutes ago.
134 Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where
135 cvsimport leaks memory.
137 -A <author-conv-file>::
138 CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its
139 commit logs. Using this option and an author-conv-file
140 maps the name recorded in CVS to author name, e-mail and
144 exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
145 spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org> America/Chicago
149 'git cvsimport' will make it appear as those authors had
150 their GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly
151 all along. If a timezone is specified, GIT_AUTHOR_DATE will
152 have the corresponding offset applied.
154 For convenience, this data is saved to `$GIT_DIR/cvs-authors`
155 each time the '-A' option is provided and read from that same
156 file each time 'git cvsimport' is run.
158 It is not recommended to use this feature if you intend to
159 export changes back to CVS again later with
160 'git cvsexportcommit'.
163 Generate a `$GIT_DIR/cvs-revisions` file containing a mapping from CVS
164 revision numbers to newly-created Git commit IDs. The generated file
165 will contain one line for each (filename, revision) pair imported;
166 each line will look like
169 src/widget.c 1.1 1d862f173cdc7325b6fa6d2ae1cfd61fd1b512b7
172 The revision data is appended to the file if it already exists, for use when
173 doing incremental imports.
175 This option may be useful if you have CVS revision numbers stored in commit
176 messages, bug-tracking systems, email archives, and the like.
179 Print a short usage message and exit.
183 If '-v' is specified, the script reports what it is doing.
185 Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting with
191 Problems related to timestamps:
193 * If timestamps of commits in the CVS repository are not stable enough
194 to be used for ordering commits changes may show up in the wrong
196 * If any files were ever "cvs import"ed more than once (e.g., import of
197 more than one vendor release) the HEAD contains the wrong content.
198 * If the timestamp order of different files cross the revision order
199 within the commit matching time window the order of commits may be
202 Problems related to branches:
204 * Branches on which no commits have been made are not imported.
205 * All files from the branching point are added to a branch even if
207 * This applies to files added to the source branch *after* a daughter
208 branch was created: if previously no commit was made on the daughter
209 branch they will erroneously be added to the daughter branch in git.
211 Problems related to tags:
213 * Multiple tags on the same revision are not imported.
215 If you suspect that any of these issues may apply to the repository you
216 want to import consider using these alternative tools which proved to be
217 more stable in practice:
219 * cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), `http://cvs2svn.tigris.org`
220 * parsecvs, `http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~keithp/parsecvs`
224 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite
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