GIT-CVSIMPORT(1)

📦
version 2.56.0 · 23 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44

git-cvsimport(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the git-cvsimport page from the Git Manual — yes it's a real section of the git(1) suite, no I'm not kidding, and yes we're gonna get through all of it together. grab a strawberry 🍓, this one's a journey.

✨ NAME ✨

git-cvsimport — Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to hate 🫶

(that's literally what it says, I'm not even editorialising, the manpage itself is throwing shade and honestly? iconic.)

🦋 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>]

like, look at that flag soup. she's got range 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

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

okay so first thing, the tea: this tool is running on cvsps v2 and that thing is old old. v3+? doesn't talk to it. periodt. if you just need to yeet a CVS repo into Git one single time, the manpage itself is telling you to go look at cvs2git[1] or cvs-fast-export[2] first. listen to the manpage, she knows things.

So what does it actually do? It imports a CVS repository into Git. Two moods:

  • it can create a brand new repository, or
  • it can incrementally import into an existing one.

The whole "splitting the CVS log into patch sets" thing is handled by cvsps. And you need at least version 2.1 of it, minimum, no exceptions. 💀

WARNING: for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results. Please see the section ISSUES for further reference.

fr fr, go read the ISSUES section later, I'll be there waiting with you.

Now, the big boundary: you should never do any work of your own on the branches that are created by git cvsimport. Not one little commit. Here's the situation:

  • by default, the initial import will create and populate a "master" branch from the CVS repository's main branch — and that one you're free to work with 💖
  • after that? you need to git merge incremental imports, or any CVS branches, yourself. main character energy, nobody's doing it for you.

It is advisable to specify a named remote via -r to separate and protect the incoming branches. (Protect the incoming branches. she said what she said.)

And 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. she'll narrate her own life, love that for her.
  • -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. untouched, unbothered, unperceived ✨
  • -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 workaround, bestie. a workaround.)
  • -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. bye bestie 👋

🎀 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. no confetti, no fanfare, just a silent 0. that's the vibe. ⭐

💀 ISSUES 💀

okay so this is the part where the manpage sits you down and tells you the truth. pay attention.

Problems related to timestamps:

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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:

  • Branches on which no commits have been made are not imported.
  • All files from the branching point are added to a branch even if never added in CVS.
  • 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:

  • 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:

🌈 GIT 🌈

Part of the git(1) suite. one big happy family 🫶

📝 NOTES 📝

  1. cvs2git http://cvs2svn.tigris.org/cvs2git.html
  2. cvs-fast-export https://gitlab.com/esr/cvs-fast-export

and that's the whole page, bestie, you ate it 🍓✨ this was Git 2.56.0, dated 09/28/2026, from the git-cvsimport(1) manual — slay, go rescue that repo, and remember: don't commit on the imported branches. 💜👑

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