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 *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 http://www.catb.org/esr/cvs-fast-export/[cvs-fast-export].
27 Imports a CVS repository into Git. It will either create a new
28 repository, or incrementally import into an existing one.
30 Splitting the CVS log into patch sets is done by 'cvsps'.
31 At least version 2.1 is required.
33 *WARNING:* for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results.
34 Please see the section <<issues,ISSUES>> for further reference.
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.
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].
53 Verbosity: let 'cvsimport' report what it is doing.
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.
63 The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>.
64 If not given, 'git cvsimport' tries to read it from
68 The Git repository to import to. If the directory doesn't
69 exist, it will be created. Default is the current directory.
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.
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
85 Use '-o master' for continuing an import that was initially done by
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.
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.
99 Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots.
102 Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst>
104 -p <options-for-cvsps>::
105 Additional options for cvsps.
106 The options `-u` and '-A' are implicit and should not be used here.
108 If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma.
111 Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset,
112 cvsps defaults to 300s.
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.
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.
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.
128 The regex must capture the source branch name in $1.
130 This option can be used several times to provide several detection regexes.
133 Skip paths matching the regex.
136 Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default
137 skips commits that have a timestamp less than 10 minutes ago.
140 Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where
141 cvsimport leaks memory.
143 -A <author-conv-file>::
144 CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its
145 commit logs. Using this option and an author-conv-file
146 maps the name recorded in CVS to author name, e-mail and
150 exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
151 spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org> America/Chicago
155 'git cvsimport' will make it appear as those authors had
156 their GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly
157 all along. If a time zone is specified, GIT_AUTHOR_DATE will
158 have the corresponding offset applied.
160 For convenience, this data is saved to `$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.
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'.
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
175 src/widget.c 1.1 1d862f173cdc7325b6fa6d2ae1cfd61fd1b512b7
178 The revision data is appended to the file if it already exists, for use when
179 doing incremental imports.
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.
185 Print a short usage message and exit.
189 If `-v` is specified, the script reports what it is doing.
191 Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting with
197 Problems related to timestamps:
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
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
208 Problems related to branches:
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
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.
217 Problems related to tags:
219 * Multiple tags on the same revision are not imported.
221 If you suspect that any of these issues may apply to the repository you
222 want to import, consider using cvs2git:
224 * cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), `http://subversion.apache.org/`
228 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite
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