1GIT-CVSIMPORT(1)                  Git Manual                  GIT-CVSIMPORT(1)
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NAME

6       git-cvsimport - Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to
7       hate
8

SYNOPSIS

10       git cvsimport [-o <branch-for-HEAD>] [-h] [-v] [-d <CVSROOT>]
11                     [-A <author-conv-file>] [-p <options-for-cvsps>] [-P <file>]
12                     [-C <git_repository>] [-z <fuzz>] [-i] [-k] [-u] [-s <subst>]
13                     [-a] [-m] [-M <regex>] [-S <regex>] [-L <commitlimit>]
14                     [-r <remote>] [-R] [<CVS_module>]
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16

DESCRIPTION

18       Imports a CVS repository into git. It will either create a new
19       repository, or incrementally import into an existing one.
20
21       Splitting the CVS log into patch sets is done by cvsps. At least
22       version 2.1 is required.
23
24       WARNING: for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results.
25       Please see the section ISSUES for further reference.
26
27       You should never do any work of your own on the branches that are
28       created by git cvsimport. By default initial import will create and
29       populate a "master" branch from the CVS repository’s main branch which
30       you’re free to work with; after that, you need to git merge incremental
31       imports, or any CVS branches, yourself. It is advisable to specify a
32       named remote via -r to separate and protect the incoming branches.
33
34       If you intend to set up a shared public repository that all developers
35       can read/write, or if you want to use git-cvsserver(1), then you
36       probably want to make a bare clone of the imported repository, and use
37       the clone as the shared repository. See gitcvs-migration(7).
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OPTIONS

40       -v
41           Verbosity: let cvsimport report what it is doing.
42
43       -d <CVSROOT>
44           The root of the CVS archive. May be local (a simple path) or
45           remote; currently, only the :local:, :ext: and :pserver: access
46           methods are supported. If not given, git cvsimport will try to read
47           it from CVS/Root. If no such file exists, it checks for the CVSROOT
48           environment variable.
49
50       <CVS_module>
51           The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>. If not
52           given, git cvsimport tries to read it from CVS/Repository.
53
54       -C <target-dir>
55           The git repository to import to. If the directory doesn’t exist, it
56           will be created. Default is the current directory.
57
58       -r <remote>
59           The git remote to import this CVS repository into. Moves all CVS
60           branches into remotes/<remote>/<branch> akin to the way git clone
61           uses origin by default.
62
63       -o <branch-for-HEAD>
64           When no remote is specified (via -r) the HEAD branch from CVS is
65           imported to the origin branch within the git repository, as HEAD
66           already has a special meaning for git. When a remote is specified
67           the HEAD branch is named remotes/<remote>/master mirroring git
68           clone behaviour. Use this option if you want to import into a
69           different branch.
70
71           Use -o master for continuing an import that was initially done by
72           the old cvs2git tool.
73
74       -i
75           Import-only: don’t perform a checkout after importing. This option
76           ensures the working directory and index remain untouched and will
77           not create them if they do not exist.
78
79       -k
80           Kill keywords: will extract files with -kk from the CVS archive to
81           avoid noisy changesets. Highly recommended, but off by default to
82           preserve compatibility with early imported trees.
83
84       -u
85           Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots.
86
87       -s <subst>
88           Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst>
89
90       -p <options-for-cvsps>
91           Additional options for cvsps. The options -u and -A are implicit
92           and should not be used here.
93
94           If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma.
95
96       -z <fuzz>
97           Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset,
98           cvsps defaults to 300s.
99
100       -P <cvsps-output-file>
101           Instead of calling cvsps, read the provided cvsps output file.
102           Useful for debugging or when cvsps is being handled outside
103           cvsimport.
104
105       -m
106           Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message. This option
107           will enable default regexes that try to capture the source branch
108           name from the commit message.
109
110       -M <regex>
111           Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message with a custom
112           regex. It can be used with -m to enable the default regexes as
113           well. You must escape forward slashes.
114
115           The regex must capture the source branch name in $1.
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117           This option can be used several times to provide several detection
118           regexes.
119
120       -S <regex>
121           Skip paths matching the regex.
122
123       -a
124           Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default
125           skips commits that have a timestamp less than 10 minutes ago.
126
127       -L <limit>
128           Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where
129           cvsimport leaks memory.
130
131       -A <author-conv-file>
132           CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its commit logs.
133           Using this option and an author-conv-file in this format
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135                       exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
136                       spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org>
137
138           git cvsimport will make it appear as those authors had their
139           GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly all along.
140
141           For convenience, this data is saved to $GIT_DIR/cvs-authors each
142           time the -A option is provided and read from that same file each
143           time git cvsimport is run.
144
145           It is not recommended to use this feature if you intend to export
146           changes back to CVS again later with git cvsexportcommit.
147
148       -R
149           Generate a $GIT_DIR/cvs-revisions file containing a mapping from
150           CVS revision numbers to newly-created Git commit IDs. The generated
151           file will contain one line for each (filename, revision) pair
152           imported; each line will look like
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154               src/widget.c 1.1 1d862f173cdc7325b6fa6d2ae1cfd61fd1b512b7
155
156           The revision data is appended to the file if it already exists, for
157           use when doing incremental imports.
158
159           This option may be useful if you have CVS revision numbers stored
160           in commit messages, bug-tracking systems, email archives, and the
161           like.
162
163       -h
164           Print a short usage message and exit.
165

OUTPUT

167       If -v is specified, the script reports what it is doing.
168
169       Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting
170       with a zero exit status.
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ISSUES

173       Problems related to timestamps:
174
175       ·   If timestamps of commits in the cvs repository are not stable
176           enough to be used for ordering commits changes may show up in the
177           wrong order.
178
179       ·   If any files were ever "cvs import"ed more than once (e.g., import
180           of more than one vendor release) the HEAD contains the wrong
181           content.
182
183       ·   If the timestamp order of different files cross the revision order
184           within the commit matching time window the order of commits may be
185           wrong.
186
187       Problems related to branches:
188
189       ·   Branches on which no commits have been made are not imported.
190
191       ·   All files from the branching point are added to a branch even if
192           never added in cvs.
193
194       ·   This applies to files added to the source branch after a daughter
195           branch was created: if previously no commit was made on the
196           daughter branch they will erroneously be added to the daughter
197           branch in git.
198
199       Problems related to tags:
200
201       ·   Multiple tags on the same revision are not imported.
202
203       If you suspect that any of these issues may apply to the repository you
204       want to import consider using these alternative tools which proved to
205       be more stable in practice:
206
207       ·   cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), http://cvs2svn.tigris.org
208
209       ·   parsecvs, http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~keithp/parsecvs
210

AUTHOR

212       Written by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de[1]>, with help from
213       various participants of the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org[2]>.
214

DOCUMENTATION

216       Documentation by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de[1]>.
217

GIT

219       Part of the git(1) suite
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NOTES

222        1. smurf@smurf.noris.de
223           mailto:smurf@smurf.noris.de
224
225        2. git@vger.kernel.org
226           mailto:git@vger.kernel.org
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230Git 1.7.1                         08/16/2017                  GIT-CVSIMPORT(1)
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