Scroll to navigation

CVS2SVN(1) User Commands CVS2SVN(1)

NAME

cvs2svn - convert a CVS repository into a Subversion repository

SYNOPSIS

cvs2svn [OPTION]... OUTPUT-OPTION [CVS-REPOS-PATH]
cvs2svn [OPTION]... --options=PATH

DESCRIPTION

Create a new Subversion repository based on the version history stored in a CVS repository. Each CVS commit will be mirrored in the Subversion repository, including such information as date of commit and id of the committer.

CVS-REPOS-PATH is the filesystem path of the part of the CVS repository that you want to convert. It is not possible to convert a CVS repository to which you only have remote access; see the FAQ for more information. This path doesn't have to be the top level directory of a CVS repository; it can point at a project within a repository, in which case only that project will be converted. This path or one of its parent directories has to contain a subdirectory called CVSROOT (though the CVSROOT directory can be empty). If omitted, the repository path defaults to the current directory.

Multiple CVS repositories can be converted into a single Subversion repository in a single run of cvs2svn, but only by using an --options file.

OPTIONS

CONFIGURATION VIA OPTIONS FILE

--options=path
Read the conversion options from path instead of from the command line. This option allows far more conversion flexibility than can be achieved using the command-line alone. See the documentation for more information. Only the following command-line options are allowed in combination with --options: -h/--help, --help-passes, --version, -v/--verbose, -q/--quiet, -p/--pass/--passes, --dry-run, --profile, --trunk-only, --encoding, and --fallback-encoding. Options are processed in the order specified on the command line.

OUTPUT OPTIONS

-s path, --svnrepos=path
Write the output of the conversion into a Subversion repository located at path. This option causes a new Subversion repository to be created at path unless the --existing-svnrepos option is also used.
--existing-svnrepos
Load the converted CVS repository into an existing Subversion repository, instead of creating a new repository. (This option should be used in combination with -s/--svnrepos.) The repository must either be empty or contain no paths that overlap with those that will result from the conversion. Please note that you need write permission for the repository files.
--fs-type=type
Pass --fs-type=type to "svnadmin create" when creating a new repository.
--bdb-txn-nosync
Pass --bdb-txn-nosync to "svnadmin create" when creating a new BDB-style Subversion repository.
--create-option=opt
Pass opt to "svnadmin create" when creating a new Subversion repository (can be specified multiple times to pass multiple options).
--dumpfile=path
Just produce a dumpfile; don't commit to an SVN repository. Write the dumpfile to path.
--dry-run
Do not create a repository or a dumpfile; just print the details of what cvs2svn would do if it were really converting your repository.

CONVERSION OPTIONS

--trunk-only
Convert only trunk commits, not tags nor branches.
--encoding=enc
Use encoding as the encoding for filenames, log messages, and author names in the CVS repos. This option may be specified multiple times, in which case the encodings are tried in order until one succeeds. Default: ascii. See http://docs.python.org/lib/standard-encodings.html for a list of other standard encodings.
--fallback-encoding=enc
If none of the encodings specified with --encoding succeed in decoding an author name or log message, then fall back to using encoding in lossy 'replace' mode. Use of this option may cause information to be lost, but at least it allows the conversion to run to completion. This option only affects the encoding of log messages and author names; there is no fallback encoding for filenames. (By using an --options file, it is possible to specify a fallback encoding for filenames.) Default: disabled.
--retain-conflicting-attic-files
If a file appears both inside and outside of the CVS attic, retain the attic version in a subdirectory called 'Attic'. (Normally this situation is treated as a fatal error.)
--trunk=path
Set the top-level path to use for trunk in the Subversion repository. The default is trunk.
--branches=path
Set the top-level path to use for branches in the Subversion repository. The default is branches.
--tags=path
Set the top-level path to use for tags in the Subversion repository. The default is tags.
--include-empty-directories
Treat empty subdirectories within the CVS repository as actual directories, creating them when the parent directory is created and removing them if and when the parent directory is pruned.
--no-prune
When all files are deleted from a directory in the Subversion repository, don't delete the empty directory (the default is to delete any empty directories).
--no-cross-branch-commits
Prevent the creation of commits that affect files on multiple branches at once.

SYMBOL HANDLING

--symbol-transform=p:s
Transform RCS/CVS symbol names before entering them into the output history. pattern is a Python regexp pattern that is matches against the entire symbol name; replacement is a replacement using Python's regexp reference syntax. You may specify any number of these options; they will be applied in the order given on the command line.
--symbol-hints=path
Read symbol conversion hints from path. The format of path is the same as the format output by --write-symbol-info, namely a text file with four whitespace-separated columns: project-id, symbol, conversion, and parent-lod-name. project-id is the numerical ID of the project to which the symbol belongs, counting from 0. project-id can be set to '.' if project-specificity is not needed. symbol-name is the name of the symbol being specified. conversion specifies how the symbol should be converted, and can be one of the values 'branch', 'tag', or ´exclude'. If conversion is '.', then this rule does not affect how the symbol is converted. parent-lod-name is the name of the symbol from which this symbol should sprout, or '.trunk.' if the symbol should sprout from trunk. If parent-lod-name is omitted or '.', then this rule does not affect the preferred parent of this symbol. The file may contain blank lines or comment lines (lines whose first non-whitespace character is '#').
--symbol-default=opt
Specify how to convert ambiguous symbols (those that appear in the CVS archive as both branches and tags). opt must be 'heuristic' (decide how to treat each ambiguous symbol based on whether it was used more often as a branch/tag in CVS), 'strict' (no default; every ambiguous symbol has to be resolved manually using --force-branch, --force-tag, or --exclude), 'branch' (treat every ambiguous symbol as a branch), 'tag' (treat every ambiguous symbol as a tag), or 'exclude' (do not convert ambiguous symbols). The default is 'heuristic'.
--force-branch=regexp
Force symbols whose names match regexp to be branches. regexp must match the whole symbol name.
--force-tag=regexp
Force symbols whose names match regexp to be tags. regexp must match the whole symbol name.
--exclude=regexp
Exclude branches and tags whose names match regexp from the conversion. regexp must match the whole symbol name.
--keep-trivial-imports
Do not exclude branches that were only used for a single import. (By default such branches are excluded because they are usually created by the inappropriate use of cvs import.)

SUBVERSION PROPERTIES

--username=name
Set the default username to name when this program needs to generate a commit for which CVS does not record the original username. This happens when a branch or tag is created. The default is to use no author at all for such commits.
--auto-props=file
Specify a file in the format of Subversion's config file, whose [auto-props] section can be used to set arbitrary properties on files in the Subversion repository based on their filenames. (The [auto-props] section header must be present; other sections of the config file, including the enable-auto-props setting, are ignored.) Filenames are matched to the filename patterns case-insensitively.
--mime-types=file
Specify an apache-style mime.types file for setting svn:mime-type.
--eol-from-mime-type
For files that don't have the kb expansion mode but have a known mime type, set the eol-style based on the mime type. For such files, set svn:eol-style to "native" if the mime type begins with "text/", and leave it unset (i.e., no EOL translation) otherwise. Files with unknown mime types are not affected by this option. This option has no effect unless the --mime-types option is also specified.
--default-eol=style
Set svn:eol-style to style for files that don't have the CVS ´kb' expansion mode and whose end-of-line translation mode hasn't been determined by one of the other options. style must be 'binary' (default), 'native', 'CRLF', 'LF', or 'CR'.
--keywords-off
By default, cvs2svn sets svn:keywords on CVS files to "author id date" if the mode of the RCS file in question is either kv, kvl or unset. If you use the --keywords-off switch, cvs2svn will not set svn:keywords for any file. While this will not touch the keywords in the contents of your files, Subversion will not expand them.
--keep-cvsignore
Include .cvsignore files in the output. (Normally they are unneeded because cvs2svn sets the corresponding svn:ignore properties.)
--cvs-revnums
Record CVS revision numbers as file properties in the Subversion repository. (Note that unless it is removed explicitly, the last CVS revision number will remain associated with the file even after the file is changed within Subversion.)

EXTRACTION OPTIONS

--use-internal-co
Use internal code to extract revision contents. This is up to 50% faster than using --use-rcs, but needs a lot of disk space: roughly the size of your CVS repository plus the peak size of a complete checkout of the repository with all branches that existed and still had commits pending at a given time. This option is the default.
--use-cvs
Use CVS to extract revision contents. This option is slower than --use-internal-co or --use-rcs.
--use-rcs
Use RCS 'co' to extract revision contents. This option is faster than --use-cvs but fails in some cases.

ENVIRONMENT OPTIONS

--tmpdir=path
Set the path to use for temporary data. The default is to create a temporary subdirectory under /tmp.
--co=path
Path to the co program. (co is needed if the --use-rcs option is used.)
--cvs=path
Path to the cvs program. (cvs is needed if the --use-cvs option is used.)
--svnadmin=path
Path to the svnadmin program. (svnadmin is needed when the -s/--svnrepos output option is used.)

PARTIAL CONVERSIONS

--pass=pass
Execute only pass pass of the conversion. pass can be specified by name or by number (see --help-passes).
-p [start]:[end], --passes=[start]:[end]
Execute passes start through end of the conversion (inclusive). start and end can be specified by name or by number (see --help-passes). If start or end is missing, it defaults to the first or last pass, respectively. For this to work the earlier passes must have been completed before on the same CVS repository, and the generated data files must be in the temporary directory (see --tmpdir).

INFORMATION OPTIONS

--version
Print the version number.
-h, --help
Print the usage message and exit with success.
--help-passes
Print the numbers and names of the conversion passes and exit with success.
--man
Output the unix-style manpage for this program to standard output.
-v, --verbose
Print more information while running. This option may be specified twice to output voluminous debugging information.
-q, --quiet
Print less information while running. This option may be specified twice to suppress all non-error output.
--write-symbol-info=path
Write to path symbol statistics and information about how symbols were converted during CollateSymbolsPass.
--skip-cleanup
Prevent the deletion of temporary files.
--profile
Profile with 'cProfile' (into file cvs2svn.cProfile).

FILES

A directory under /tmp (or the directory specified by --tmpdir) is used as scratch space for temporary data files.

AUTHORS

Main authors are:
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato@collab.net>
Greg Stein <gstein@lyra.org>
Branko Čibej <brane@xbc.nu>
Blair Zajac <blair@orcaware.com>
Max Bowsher <maxb@ukf.net>
Brian Fitzpatrick <fitz@red-bean.com>
Tobias Ringström <tobias@ringstrom.mine.nu>
Karl Fogel <kfogel@collab.net>
Erik Hülsmann <e.huelsmann@gmx.net>
David Summers <david@summersoft.fay.ar.us>
Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>

Manpage was written for the Debian GNU/Linux system by Laszlo 'GCS' Boszormenyi <gcs@debian.org> (but may be used by others).

SEE ALSO

cvs(1), svn(1), svnadmin(1)
2017-11-30 Version 2.5.0