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

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 <commit-limit>]
[-r <remote>] [-R] [<CVS-module>]

DESCRIPTION

WARNING: git cvsimport uses cvsps version 2, which is considered
deprecated; it does not work with cvsps version 3 and later. If you
are performing a one-shot import of a CVS repository consider using
cvs2git[1] or cvs-fast-export[2].

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 maps the name
recorded in CVS to author name, e-mail and optional time zone:

exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org> America/Chicago

git cvsimport will make it appear as those authors had their
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly all along. If a
time zone is specified, GIT_AUTHOR_DATE will have the
corresponding offset applied.

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 cvs2git:

+o cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), https://subversion.apache.org/

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

NOTES

1. cvs2git
http://cvs2svn.tigris.org/cvs2git.html

2. cvs-fast-export
https://gitlab.com/esr/cvs-fast-export

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT-CVSIMPORT(1)