GIT-SVN(1)

📦
version 2.56.0 · 25 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44

Bestie, welcome to GIT-SVN(1) — the manual page for git-svn, aka the bidirectional bestie between Subversion and Git. 💖

✨ NAME ✨

git-svn — Bidirectional operation between a Subversion repository and Git. periodt.

📜 SYNOPSIS 📜

git svn <command> [<options>] [<arguments>]

💫 DESCRIPTION 💫

okay so git svn is literally just a simple conduit for changesets between Subversion and Git. It provides a bidirectional flow of changes between a Subversion repo and a Git repo. no cap.

git svn can track a standard Subversion repository, following the common "trunk/branches/tags" layout, with the --stdlayout option. It can also follow branches and tags in any layout with the -T/-t/-b options (peep the options to init below, and also the clone command). ✨

Once you're tracking a Subversion repository (with any of the above methods), the Git repository can be updated from Subversion by the fetch command, and Subversion updated from Git by the dcommit command. iconic. 💅

🛠️ COMMANDS 🛠️

🌱 init

Initializes an empty Git repository with additional metadata directories for git svn. The Subversion URL may be specified as a command-line argument, or as full URL arguments to -T/-t/-b. Optionally, the target directory to operate on can be specified as a second argument. Normally this command initializes the current directory. 🎀

  • -T<trunk-subdir>, --trunk=<trunk-subdir>, -t<tags-subdir>, --tags=<tags-subdir>, -b<branches-subdir>, --branches=<branches-subdir>, -s, --stdlayout — These are optional command-line options for init. Each of these flags can point to a relative repository path (--tags=project/tags) or a full url (--tags=https://foo.org/project/tags). You can specify more than one --tags and/or --branches options, in case your Subversion repository places tags or branches under multiple paths. The option --stdlayout is a shorthand way of setting trunk,tags,branches as the relative paths, which is the Subversion default. If any of the other options are given as well, they take precedence. 👑
  • --no-metadata — Set the noMetadata option in the [svn-remote] config. This option is not recommended, please read the svn.noMetadata section of this manpage before using this option. 😭
  • --use-svm-props — Set the useSvmProps option in the [svn-remote] config.
  • --use-svnsync-props — Set the useSvnsyncProps option in the [svn-remote] config.
  • --rewrite-root=<URL> — Set the rewriteRoot option in the [svn-remote] config.
  • --rewrite-uuid=<UUID> — Set the rewriteUUID option in the [svn-remote] config.
  • --username=<user> — For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http, https, and plain svn), specify the username. For other transports (e.g. svn+ssh://), you must include the username in the URL, e.g. svn+ssh://foo@svn.bar.com/project
  • --prefix=<prefix> — This allows one to specify a prefix which is prepended to the names of remotes if trunk/branches/tags are specified. The prefix does not automatically include a trailing slash, so be sure you include one in the argument if that is what you want. If --branches/-b is specified, the prefix must include a trailing slash. Setting a prefix (with a trailing slash) is strongly encouraged in any case, as your SVN-tracking refs will then be located at "refs/remotes/$prefix/", which is compatible with Git's own remote-tracking ref layout (refs/remotes/$remote/). Setting a prefix is also useful if you wish to track multiple projects that share a common repository. By default, the prefix is set to origin/. 🌈
Note — Before Git v2.0, the default prefix was "" (no prefix). This meant that SVN-tracking refs were put at "refs/remotes/*", which is incompatible with how Git's own remote-tracking refs are organized. If you still want the old default, you can get it by passing --prefix "" on the command line (--prefix="" may not work if your Perl's Getopt::Long is < v2.37). 💀
  • --ignore-refs=<regex> — When passed to init or clone this regular expression will be preserved as a config key. See fetch for a description of --ignore-refs.
  • --ignore-paths=<regex> — When passed to init or clone this regular expression will be preserved as a config key. See fetch for a description of --ignore-paths.
  • --include-paths=<regex> — When passed to init or clone this regular expression will be preserved as a config key. See fetch for a description of --include-paths.
  • --no-minimize-url — When tracking multiple directories (using --stdlayout, --branches, or --tags options), git svn will attempt to connect to the root (or highest allowed level) of the Subversion repository. This default allows better tracking of history if entire projects are moved within a repository, but may cause issues on repositories where read access restrictions are in place. Passing --no-minimize-url will allow git svn to accept URLs as-is without attempting to connect to a higher level directory. This option is off by default when only one URL/branch is tracked (it would do little good). 🙈

🌊 fetch

Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are tracking. The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the $GIT_DIR/config file may be specified as an optional command-line argument. 🦋

This automatically updates the rev_map if needed (see $GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* in the FILES section below for details).

  • --localtime — Store Git commit times in the local time zone instead of UTC. This makes git log (even without --date=local) show the same times that svn log would in the local time zone.

This doesn't interfere with interoperating with the Subversion repository you cloned from, but if you wish for your local Git repository to be able to interoperate with someone else's local Git repository, either don't use this option or you should both use it in the same local time zone. ⏰

  • --parent — Fetch only from the SVN parent of the current HEAD.
  • --ignore-refs=<regex> — Ignore refs for branches or tags matching the Perl regular expression. A "negative look-ahead assertion" like ^refs/remotes/origin/(?!tags/wanted-tag|wanted-branch).*$ can be used to allow only certain refs.

config key: svn-remote.<name>.ignore-refs

If the ignore-refs configuration key is set, and the command-line option is also given, both regular expressions will be used. 🔍

  • --ignore-paths=<regex> — This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will cause skipping of all matching paths from checkout from SVN. The --ignore-paths option should match for every fetch (including automatic fetches due to clone, dcommit, rebase, etc) on a given repository.

config key: svn-remote.<name>.ignore-paths

If the ignore-paths configuration key is set, and the command-line option is also given, both regular expressions will be used.

Examples:

Skip "doc*" directory for every fetch

--ignore-paths="^doc"

Skip "branches" and "tags" of first level directories

--ignore-paths="^[^/]+/(?:branches|tags)"
  • --include-paths=<regex> — This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will cause the inclusion of only matching paths from checkout from SVN. The --include-paths option should match for every fetch (including automatic fetches due to clone, dcommit, rebase, etc) on a given repository. --ignore-paths takes precedence over --include-paths.

config key: svn-remote.<name>.include-paths

  • --log-window-size=<n> — Fetch <n> log entries per request when scanning Subversion history. The default is 100. For very large Subversion repositories, larger values may be needed for clone/fetch to complete in reasonable time. But overly large values may lead to higher memory usage and request timeouts. 🫶

🐑 clone

Runs init and fetch. It will automatically create a directory based on the basename of the URL passed to it; or if a second argument is passed; it will create a directory and work within that. It accepts all arguments that the init and fetch commands accept; with the exception of --fetch-all and --parent. After a repository is cloned, the fetch command will be able to update revisions without affecting the working tree; and the rebase command will be able to update the working tree with the latest changes. 🌸

  • --preserve-empty-dirs — Create a placeholder file in the local Git repository for each empty directory fetched from Subversion. This includes directories that become empty by removing all entries in the Subversion repository (but not the directory itself). The placeholder files are also tracked and removed when no longer necessary.
  • --placeholder-filename=<filename> — Set the name of placeholder files created by --preserve-empty-dirs. Default: ".gitignore" 🍓

🔄 rebase

This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD and rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it. 💅

This works similarly to svn update or git pull except that it preserves linear history with git rebase instead of git merge for ease of dcommitting with git svn. ✨

This accepts all options that git svn fetch and git rebase accept. However, --fetch-all only fetches from the current [svn-remote], and not all [svn-remote] definitions.

Like git rebase; this requires that the working tree be clean and have no uncommitted changes. 🧼

This automatically updates the rev_map if needed (see $GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* in the FILES section below for details).

  • -l, --local — Do not fetch remotely; only run git rebase against the last fetched commit from the upstream SVN. 🏠

📤 dcommit

Commit each diff from the current branch directly to the SVN repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or not there is a diff between SVN and head). This will create a revision in SVN for each commit in Git. 👑

Okay so when you hand it an optional Git branch name (or a Git commit object name) as an argument, the subcommand goes and does its thing on that branch, not on whatever branch you're currently sitting on. 💅

And fr fr, using dcommit is way preferred over set-tree (which we'll get to below, bestie).

  • --no-rebase — after committing, don't rebase and don't reset. That's it, that's the vibe.
  • --commit-url <URL> — commit to this SVN URL (the full path). The whole point is letting existing git svn repos that were created with one transport method (like svn:// or http:// for anonymous reading) get reused if a user later gets access to an alternate transport method (like svn+ssh:// or https://) for committing. 🦋
    • config key: svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
    • config key: svn.commiturl (overwrites all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl options)
    • Heads up though: the SVN URL of the commiturl config key includes the SVN branch. If you'd rather set the commit URL for an entire SVN repository, use svn-remote.<name>.pushurl instead.
Using this option for any other purpose (don't ask 😭) is very strongly discouraged.
  • --mergeinfo=<mergeinfo> — drop the given merge information in during the dcommit (like --mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10"). Every svn server version can store this info (as a property), and svn clients starting from version 1.5 can actually make use of it. Want merge info from multiple branches? Use a single space character between the branches: --mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10 /branches/bar:3,5-6,8"
    • config key: svn.pushmergeinfo
    • This option makes git-svn attempt to automatically populate the svn:mergeinfo property in the SVN repository when possible. Currently that can only happen when dcommitting non-fast-forward merges where all parents but the first have already been pushed into SVN.
  • --interactive — asks you to confirm that a patch set should actually get sent to SVN. For each patch you can answer "yes" (accept this patch), "no" (discard it), "all" (accept all the patches), or "quit".
    • git svn dcommit returns immediately if the answer is "no" or "quit", without committing anything to SVN.

🌸 branch 🌸

Creates a branch in the SVN repository. Yes queen, go make that branch.

  • -m, --message — lets you specify the commit message.
  • -t, --tag — creates a tag by using the tags_subdir instead of the branches_subdir you specified during git svn init.
  • -d<path>, --destination=<path> — if you gave more than one --branches (or --tags) option to the init or clone command, you must provide the location of the branch (or tag) you want to create in the SVN repository. <path> says which path to use to create the branch or tag and should match the pattern on the left-hand side of one of the configured branches or tags refspecs. You can peek at those refspecs with:
git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.branches
git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.tags

where <name> is the name of the SVN repository as specified by the -R option to init (or "svn" by default).

  • --username — specify the SVN username to perform the commit as. This option overrides the username configuration property.
  • --commit-url — use the specified URL to connect to the destination Subversion repository. Super useful when the source SVN repository is read-only. This option overrides the configuration property commiturl.
git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
  • --parents — create parent folders. This parameter is equivalent to the --parents parameter on svn cp commands and is useful for non-standard repository layouts.

tag ✨

Creates a tag in the SVN repository. It's a shorthand for branch -t. Periodt.

🎀 log 🎀

This is meant to make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn users start referring to -r/--revision numbers.

The following features from "svn log" are supported:

  • -r <n>[:<n>], --revision=<n>[:<n>] — supported, but non-numeric args are not: HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ... nope, not those.
  • -v, --verbose — it's not completely compatible with the --verbose output in svn log, but it's reasonably close.
  • --limit=<n> — is NOT the same as --max-count, and it doesn't count merged/excluded commits.
  • --incremental — supported.

New features:

  • --show-commit — also shows the Git commit sha1.
  • --oneline — our version of --pretty=oneline.
Note — SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The regular svn client converts that UTC time to the local time (or based on the TZ= environment). This command has the same behaviour.

Any other arguments get passed directly to git log.

🦋 blame 🦋

Shows what revision and author last modified each line of a file. By default, the output of this mode is format-compatible with the output of "svn blame". Just like the SVN blame command, local uncommitted changes in the working tree are ignored — the version of the file in the HEAD revision is what gets annotated. Unknown arguments are passed directly to git blame.

  • --git-format — produce output in the same format as git blame, but with SVN revision numbers instead of Git commit hashes. In this mode, changes that haven't been committed to SVN (including local working-copy edits) show up as revision 0.

🔁 find-rev 🔁

Give it an SVN revision number of the form rN and it returns the corresponding Git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched). Give it a tree-ish and it returns the corresponding SVN revision number.

  • -B, --before — don't require an exact match when given an SVN revision; instead find the commit corresponding to the state of the SVN repository (on the current branch) at the specified revision.
  • -A, --after — don't require an exact match when given an SVN revision; if there's no exact match, return the closest match searching forward in the history.

🙈 set-tree 🙈

Bestie, you should consider using dcommit instead of this command. It commits specified commit or tree objects to SVN. It relies on your imported fetch data being up to date. It makes absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN — it simply overwrites files with the ones specified in the tree or commit. All merging is assumed to have taken place independently of git svn functions.

🌈 create-ignore 🌈

Recursively finds the svn:ignore and svn:global-ignores properties on directories and creates matching .gitignore files. The resulting files are staged to be committed, but they are not committed. Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific revision.

⭐ show-ignore ⭐

Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore and svn:global-ignores properties on directories. The output is suitable for appending to the $GIT_COMMON_DIR/info/exclude file.

🧚 mkdirs 🧚

Attempts to recreate empty directories that core Git cannot track, based on information in $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files. Empty directories get automatically recreated when using "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase", so mkdirs is intended for use after commands like "git checkout" or "git reset". (See the svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs config file option for more information.)

💅 commit-diff 💅

Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the command-line. This command does not rely on being inside a git svn init-ed repository. It takes three arguments: (a) the original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the URL of the target Subversion repository. The final argument (URL) may be omitted if you're working from a git svn-aware repository (that has been init-ed with git svn). The -r<revision> option is required for this.

The commit message is supplied either directly with the -m or -F option, or indirectly from the tag or commit when the second tree-ish denotes such an object, or it is requested by invoking an editor (see the --edit option below).

  • -m <msg>, --message=<msg> — use the given msg as the commit message. This option disables the --edit option.
  • -F <filename>, --file=<filename> — take the commit message from the given file. This option disables the --edit option.

🌸 info 🌸

Shows information about a file or directory similar to what "svn info" provides. Does not currently support a -r/--revision argument. Use the --url option to output only the value of the URL: field.

💜 proplist 💜

Lists the properties stored in the Subversion repository about a given file or directory. Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific Subversion revision.

propget

Gets the Subversion property given as the first argument, for a file. A specific revision can be specified with -r/--revision.

🎀 propset 🎀

Sets the Subversion property given as the first argument, to the value given as the second argument, for the file given as the third argument.

Example:

git svn propset svn:keywords "FreeBSD=%H" devel/py-tipper/Makefile

This sets the property svn:keywords to FreeBSD=%H for the file devel/py-tipper/Makefile.

show-externals

Shows the Subversion externals. Use -r/--revision to specify a specific revision.

🧹 gc 🧹

Compresses $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files and removes $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/index files.

reset

Undoes the effects of fetch back to the specified revision. This lets you re-fetch an SVN revision. Normally the contents of an SVN revision should never change and reset should not be necessary. However — if SVN permissions change, or if you alter your --ignore-paths option, a fetch may fail with "not found in commit" (file not previously visible) or "checksum mismatch" (missed a modification). If the problem file cannot be ignored forever (with --ignore-paths), the only way to repair the repo is to use reset. 😭

Only the rev_map and refs/remotes/git-svn are changed (peep $GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* in the FILES section below for the deets, bestie). After you reset, you follow it up with a fetch and then git reset or git rebase to slide your local branches onto the new tree. That's the whole ritual. 🧚

  • -r <n>, --revision=<n> — tell it the most recent revision to keep. Everything after that? Discarded. Gone. Bye. 💀
  • -p, --parent — throw out the revision you named too, and keep the nearest parent instead.

Example — so like, imagine you've got local changes chilling in "master", but you desperately need to refetch "r2". Picture it:

        r1---r2---r3 remotes/git-svn
                    \
                     A---B master

First fix whatever ignore-paths situation or SVN permissions drama made "r2" incomplete in the first place. Then:

git svn reset -r2 -p
git svn fetch
        r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
          \
           r2---r3---A---B master

Then fixup "master" with git rebase. Do NOT use git merge or your history will not be compatible with a future dcommit, fr fr, this is not the vibe to mess around with!

git rebase --onto remotes/git-svn A^ master
        r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
                    \
                     A'--B' master

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • --shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody)], --template=<template-directory> — only used with the init command, okay? These get passed directly to git init. No middleman.
  • -r <arg>, --revision <arg> — used with the fetch command.

This is what lets revision ranges for partial/cauterized history exist at all. What's supported? $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges), $NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER. All of them. 🌈

So yeah, it can let you make partial mirrors when you're running fetch — but honestly it's generally not recommended, because history will be skipped and lost. Rip to that history. 😭

  • -, --stdin — only used with the set-tree command.

Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse order. Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so git rev-list --pretty=oneline output can be used. Slay.

  • --rmdir — only used with the dcommit, set-tree and commit-diff commands.

Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left behind. See, SVN can version empty directories, and they are not removed by default if there are no files left in them. Git cannot version empty directories (different species, honestly). Enabling this flag will make the commit to SVN act like Git.

  • config key: svn.rmdir
  • -e, --edit — only used with the dcommit, set-tree and commit-diff commands.

Edit the commit message before committing to SVN. This is off by default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing tree objects. Periodt.

  • config key: svn.edit
  • -l<num>, --find-copies-harder — only used with the dcommit, set-tree and commit-diff commands.

They are both passed directly to git diff-tree; see git-diff-tree(1) for more information.

  • config key: svn.l
  • config key: svn.findcopiesharder
  • -A<filename>, --authors-file=<filename> — syntax is compatible with the file used by git cvsimport but an empty email address can be supplied with <>:
            loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>

If this option is specified and git svn encounters an SVN committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, git svn will abort operation. The user will then have to add the appropriate entry. Re-running the previous git svn command after the authors-file is modified should continue operation. So like, just add the entry and try again, you got this. 💪

  • config key: svn.authorsfile
  • --authors-prog=<filename> — if this option is specified, for each SVN committer name that does not exist in the authors file, the given file is executed with the committer name as the first argument. The program is expected to return a single line of the form "Name <email>" or "Name <>", which will be treated as if included in the authors file.

Due to historical reasons a relative filename is first searched relative to the current directory for init and clone and relative to the root of the working tree for fetch. If filename is not found, it is searched like any other command in $PATH.

  • config key: svn.authorsProg
  • -q, --quiet — make git svn less verbose. Specify a second time to make it even less verbose. It's giving "shhh, we're being mysterious." 🤫
  • -m, --merge, -s<strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>, -p, --rebase-merges — these are only used with the dcommit and rebase commands.

Passed directly to git rebase when using dcommit if a git reset cannot be used (see dcommit).

  • -n, --dry-run — this can be used with the dcommit, rebase, branch and tag commands.

For dcommit, print out the series of Git arguments that would show which diffs would be committed to SVN.

For rebase, display the local branch associated with the upstream svn repository associated with the current branch and the URL of svn repository that will be fetched from.

For branch and tag, display the urls that will be used for copying when creating the branch or tag.

  • --use-log-author — when retrieving svn commits into Git (as part of fetch, rebase, or dcommit operations), look for the first From: line or Signed-off-by trailer in the log message and use that as the author string. Iconic author-detection behaviour, honestly. 👑
    • config key: svn.useLogAuthor
  • --add-author-from — when committing to svn from Git (as part of set-tree or dcommit operations), if the existing log message doesn't already have a From: or Signed-off-by trailer, append a From: line based on the Git commit's author string. If you use this, then --use-log-author will retrieve a valid author string for all commits. The duo. The dynamic duo. 🫶
    • config key: svn.addAuthorFrom

🔥 ADVANCED OPTIONS 🔥

  • -i<GIT_SVN_ID>, --id <GIT_SVN_ID> — this sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment). This allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from when tracking a single URL. The log and dcommit commands no longer require this switch as an argument.
  • -R<remote-name>, --svn-remote <remote-name> — specify the [svn-remote "<remote-name>"] section to use, this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked. Default: "svn"
  • --follow-parent — this option is only relevant if we are tracking branches (using one of the repository layout options --trunk, --tags, --branches, --stdlayout). For each tracked branch, try to find out where its revision was copied from, and set a suitable parent in the first Git commit for the branch. This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory that has been moved around within the repository. If this feature is disabled, the branches created by git svn will all be linear and not share any history, meaning that there will be no information on where branches were branched off or merged. However, following long/convoluted histories can take a long time, so disabling this feature may speed up the cloning process. This feature is enabled by default, use --no-follow-parent to disable it. 🦋
    • config key: svn.followparent

💖 CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS 💖

Okay bestie, these ones live in the config file and nowhere else. No CLI flags, no shortcuts, just vibes in your config. ✨

  • svn.noMetadata, svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata — this literally deletes the git-svn-id: lines from the end of every single commit. Sounds cute, right? It is NOT. 🚩
    • This option can only be used for one-shot imports, because git svn will not be able to fetch again without metadata. And if you lose your $GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* files, git svn will not be able to rebuild them. Gone. Poof. 😭
    • The git svn log command will not work on repositories using this either. And using this conflicts with the useSvmProps option, for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
    • This option is NOT recommended — it makes it difficult to track down old references to SVN revision numbers in existing documentation, bug reports, and archives. If you plan to eventually migrate from SVN to Git and are certain about dropping SVN history, consider git-filter-repo[1] instead. filter-repo also allows reformatting of metadata for ease-of-reading and rewriting authorship info for non-"svn.authorsFile" users. slay, actually. 💅
  • svn.useSvmProps, svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps — this lets git svn re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
    • If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK). The property contains a repository UUID and a revision. We want to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so introduce a helper function that returns the original identity URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit messages. iconic behavior tbh 🫶
  • svn.useSvnsyncProps, svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops — similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and later. (yes the casing is different between the two, no I did not do that on purpose, it's literally just like that 😭)
  • svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot — this allows users to create repositories from alternate URLs. For example, an administrator could run git svn on the server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the metadata so users of it will see the public URL. main character server admin energy 👑
  • svn-remote.<name>.rewriteUUID — similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users who need to remap the UUID manually. This may be useful in situations where the original UUID is not available via either useSvmProps or useSvnsyncProps.
  • svn-remote.<name>.pushurl — similar to Git's remote.<name>.pushurl, this key is designed to be used in cases where url points to an SVN repository via a read-only transport, to provide an alternate read/write transport. It is assumed that both keys point to the same repository. Unlike commiturl, pushurl is a base path. If either commiturl or pushurl could be used, commiturl takes precedence. 🏆
  • svn.brokenSymlinkWorkaround — this disables potentially expensive checks to workaround broken symlinks checked into SVN by broken clients. Set this option to "false" if you track a SVN repository with many empty blobs that are not symlinks. This option may be changed while git svn is running and take effect on the next revision fetched. If unset, git svn assumes this option to be "true". ✨
  • svn.pathnameencoding — this instructs git svn to recode pathnames to a given encoding. It can be used by windows users and by those who work in non-utf8 locales to avoid corrupted file names with non-ASCII characters. Valid encodings are the ones supported by Perl's Encode module. 🌸
  • svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs — normally, the "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase" commands attempt to recreate empty directories that are in the Subversion repository. If this option is set to "false", then empty directories will only be created if the "git svn mkdirs" command is run explicitly. If unset, git svn assumes this option to be "true".
🚨 PAY ATTENTION BESTIE 🚨 Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, rewriteUUID, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps options all affect the metadata generated and used by git svn; they must be set in the configuration file before any history is imported and these settings should never be changed once they are set. Like, ever. No take-backs. 🙅‍♀️
Additionally, only one of these options can be used per svn-remote section, because they affect the git-svn-id: metadata line — except for rewriteRoot and rewriteUUID, which can be used together. bestie duo privileges 💜

🌈 BASIC EXAMPLES 🌈

✨ Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project ✨

(ignoring tags and branches, we keep it simple, we keep it cute 🎀)

# Clone a repo (like git clone):
        git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project/trunk
# Enter the newly cloned directory:
        cd trunk
# You should be on master branch, double-check with 'git branch'
        git branch
# Do some work and commit locally to Git:
        git commit ...
# Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
# latest changes in SVN:
        git svn rebase
# Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using Git) to SVN,
# as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
        git svn dcommit
# Append svn:ignore and svn:global-ignores settings to the default Git exclude file:
        git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude

🦋 Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project 🦋

(complete with a trunk, tags and branches — the full package, no crumbs 💅)

# Clone a repo with standard SVN directory layout (like git clone):
        git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project --stdlayout --prefix svn/
# Or, if the repo uses a non-standard directory layout:
        git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project -T tr -b branch -t tag --prefix svn/
# View all branches and tags you have cloned:
        git branch -r
# Create a new branch in SVN
        git svn branch waldo
# Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
# with the appropriate name):
        git reset --hard svn/trunk
# You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time.  The usage
# of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.

🌸 The big-brain server setup 🌸

The initial git svn clone can be quite time-consuming (especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use git svn to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can do the initial git svn clone to a repository on a server and have each person clone that repository with git clone:

# Do the initial import on a server
        ssh server "cd /pub && git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project [options...]"
# Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
        mkdir project
        cd project
        git init
        git remote add origin server:/pub/project
        git config --replace-all remote.origin.fetch '+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*'
        git fetch
# Prevent fetch/pull from remote Git server in the future,
# we only want to use git svn for future updates
        git config --remove-section remote.origin
# Create a local branch from one of the branches just fetched
        git checkout -b master FETCH_HEAD
# Initialize 'git svn' locally (be sure to use the same URL and
# --stdlayout/-T/-b/-t/--prefix options as were used on server)
        git svn init http://svn.example.com/project [options...]
# Pull the latest changes from Subversion
        git svn rebase

💀 REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE 💀

Okay so listen. Prefer to use git svn rebase or git rebase, rather than git pull or git merge, to synchronize unintegrated commits with a git svn branch. Doing so will keep the history of unintegrated commits linear with respect to the upstream SVN repository and allow the use of the preferred git svn dcommit subcommand to push unintegrated commits back into SVN. linear history is the moment, trust 🔥

Originally, git svn recommended that developers pulled or merged from the git svn branch. This was because the author favored git svn set-tree B to commit a single head rather than the git svn set-tree A..B notation to commit multiple commits. Use of git pull or git merge with git svn set-tree A..B will cause non-linear history to be flattened when committing into SVN and this can lead to merge commits unexpectedly reversing previous commits in SVN. not the reversal arc bestie 😭💀

🧚 MERGE TRACKING 🧚

While git svn can track copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened inside git back upstream to SVN users. So basically: it is advised that users keep history as linear as possible inside Git to ease compatibility with SVN — see the CAVEATS section below. 👀

🌿 HANDLING OF SVN BRANCHES 🌿

ok so this is the part where it gets spicy, bestie. buckle up. 💅

If git svn is set up to fetch branches (and --follow-branches is in effect), it sometimes makes multiple Git branches for one single SVN branch, and those extra ones get names like branchname@nnn (where nnn is an SVN revision number). why tho?? because git svn couldn't find a parent commit for the first commit in that SVN branch, so it has to build one to connect the branch to everybody else's history. it's giving "found family, assembled manually." 🫶

Normally, the first commit in an SVN branch is a copy operation. git svn reads that commit to figure out which SVN revision the branch came from, then goes looking for the Git commit that matches that SVN revision and uses it as the parent of the branch. but sometimes there's just no suitable Git commit to be the parent. this happens, among other reasons, when the SVN branch is a copy of a revision that git svn never fetched (like, say, an old revision that got skipped with --revision), or when in SVN somebody copied a directory that isn't tracked by git svn at all (a branch nobody tracks, or a subdirectory of a tracked branch). in those cases git svn still creates the Git branch — it's not gonna leave you hanging — but instead of using an existing Git commit as the parent, it reads the SVN history of the directory the branch was copied from and creates appropriate Git commits. you'll know it's happening because it says:

Initializing parent: <branchname>

✨ iconic little announcement, honestly.

On top of that, it creates a special branch named <branchname>@<SVN-Revision>, where <SVN-Revision> is the SVN revision number the branch was copied from. this branch points to the newly created parent commit of the branch. and if in SVN the branch was deleted and later recreated from a different version? you get multiple of these branches with an @. a whole little collection. 🎀

Heads up: this may mean that multiple Git commits get created for a single SVN revision. no cap.

An example, because examples slay: in an SVN repository with a standard trunk/tags/branches layout, a directory trunk/sub is created in r.100. In r.200, trunk/sub is branched by copying it to branches/. git svn clone -s will then create a branch sub. It will also create new Git commits for r.100 through r.199 and use these as the history of branch sub. Thus there will be two Git commits for each revision from r.100 to r.199 (one containing trunk/, one containing trunk/sub/). Finally, it will create a branch sub@200 pointing to the new parent commit of branch sub (i.e. the commit for r.200 and trunk/sub/).

see? two commits per revision. the way that math maths 😭

⚠️ CAVEATS ⚠️

ok bestie, listen to me very carefully, this section is the "don't text your ex" of this manpage. 🙈

For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with Subversion, it is recommended that all git svn users clone, fetch and dcommit directly from the SVN server, and avoid all git clone/pull/merge/push operations between Git repositories and branches. The recommended method of exchanging code between Git branches and users is git format-patch and git am, or just 'dcommit’ing to the SVN repository.

Running git merge or git pull is NOT recommended on a branch you plan to dcommit from, because Subversion users cannot see any merges you’ve made. Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a Git branch that is a mirror of an SVN branch, dcommit may commit to the wrong branch. 💀

If you do merge, note the following rule: git svn dcommit will attempt to commit on top of the SVN commit named in

git log --grep=^git-svn-id: --first-parent -1

You must therefore ensure that the most recent commit of the branch you want to dcommit to is the first parent of the merge. Chaos will ensue otherwise, especially if the first parent is an older commit on the same SVN branch. like, full-on "the group chat is on fire" chaos. 🔥

git clone does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or any git svn metadata, or config. So repositories created and managed with using git svn should use rsync for cloning, if cloning is to be done at all. (note the "if cloning is to be done at all" — the sass 😌)

Since dcommit uses rebase internally, any Git branches you git push to before dcommit on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref on the remote repository. This is generally considered bad practice, see the git-push(1) documentation for details.

Do not use the --amend option of git-commit(1) on a change you’ve already dcommitted. It is considered bad practice to --amend commits you’ve already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and dcommit with SVN is analogous to that. just... don't. 🚫

When cloning an SVN repository, if none of the options for describing the repository layout is used (--trunk, --tags, --branches, --stdlayout), git svn clone will create a Git repository with completely linear history, where branches and tags appear as separate directories in the working copy. While this is the easiest way to get a copy of a complete repository, for projects with many branches it will lead to a working copy many times larger than just the trunk. Thus for projects using the standard directory structure (trunk/branches/tags), it is recommended to clone with option --stdlayout. If the project uses a non-standard structure, and/or if branches and tags are not required, it is easiest to only clone one directory (typically trunk), without giving any repository layout options. If the full history with branches and tags is required, the options --trunk / --branches / --tags must be used.

When using multiple --branches or --tags, git svn does not automatically handle name collisions (for example, if two branches from different paths have the same name, or if a branch and a tag have the same name). In these cases, use init to set up your Git repository then, before your first fetch, edit the $GIT_DIR/config file so that the branches and tags are associated with different name spaces. For example:

branches = stable/*:refs/remotes/svn/stable/*
branches = debug/*:refs/remotes/svn/debug/*

🛠️ CONFIGURATION 🛠️

git svn stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the repository $GIT_DIR/config file. It is similar the core Git [remote] sections except fetch keys do not accept glob arguments; but they are instead handled by the branches and tags keys. Since some SVN repositories are oddly configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those listed below are allowed:

[svn-remote "project-a"]
        url = http://server.org/svn
        fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
        branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
        branches = branches/release_*:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/release_*
        branches = branches/re*se:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
        tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*

Keep in mind that the * (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref (right of the :) must be the farthest right path component; however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it’s an independent path component (surrounded by / or EOL). This type of configuration is not automatically created by init and should be manually entered with a text-editor or using git config. manual labour, bestie. we love a hands-on moment. 💪

Also note that only one asterisk is allowed per word. For example:

branches = branches/re*se:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*

will match branches release, rese, re123se, however

branches = branches/re*s*e:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*

will produce an error. one star per word, that's the rule. ⭐

It is also possible to fetch a subset of branches or tags by using a comma-separated list of names within braces. For example:

[svn-remote "huge-project"]
        url = http://server.org/svn
        fetch = trunk/src:refs/remotes/trunk
        branches = branches/{red,green}/src:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
        tags = tags/{1.0,2.0}/src:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*

Multiple fetch, branches, and tags keys are supported:

[svn-remote "messy-repo"]
        url = http://server.org/svn
        fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
        fetch = branches/demos/june-project-a-demo:refs/remotes/project-a/demos/june-demo
        branches = branches/server/*:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
        branches = branches/demos/2011/*:refs/remotes/project-a/2011-demos/*
        tags = tags/server/*:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*

Creating a branch in such a configuration requires disambiguating which location to use using the -d or --destination flag:

$ git svn branch -d branches/server release-2-3-0

Note that git-svn keeps track of the highest revision in which a branch or tag has appeared. If the subset of branches or tags is changed after fetching, then $GIT_DIR/svn/.metadata must be manually edited to remove (or reset) branches-maxRev and/or tags-maxRev as appropriate.

📁 FILES 📁

  • $GIT_DIR/svn/**/.rev_map.* — Mapping between Subversion revision numbers and Git commit names. In a repository where the noMetadata option is not set, this can be rebuilt from the git-svn-id: lines that are at the end of every commit (see the svn.noMetadata section above for details). git svn fetch and git svn rebase automatically update the rev_map if it is missing or not up to date. git svn reset automatically rewinds it. 🌀

🐛 BUGS 🐛

We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable. Any unhandled properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log

Renamed and copied directories are not detected by Git and hence not tracked when committing to SVN. I do not plan on adding support for this as it’s quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all the possible corner cases (Git doesn’t do it, either). Committing renamed and copied files is fully supported if they’re similar enough for Git to detect them.

In SVN, it is possible (though discouraged) to commit changes to a tag (because a tag is just a directory copy, thus technically the same as a branch). When cloning an SVN repository, git svn cannot know if such a commit to a tag will happen in the future. Thus it acts conservatively and imports all SVN tags as branches, prefixing the tag name with tags/.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

🧚 GIT 🧚

Part of the git(1) suite

📝 NOTES 📝

  1. git-filter-repo https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo

and that's the whole page, bestie!! you made it to the end, which honestly deserves main character energy 👑✨ This was Git 2.56.0, dated 09/28/2026, and the page itself is GIT-SVN(1). go forth and dcommit responsibly. 💖🦋

📦 where this page comes from