I’ve found myself lately making local git repositories to prototype things that I later need to promote into Bizo’s internal Subversion repository.
git-svn supports this really well, with just a slight variation on the usual git svn clone.
Instead of the standard project/trunk|branches|tags we use a slightly different parent/trunk|branches|tags/project so you’ll see I specify the -T/-t/-b flags.
git svn init
Here is what I do, from the existing local git repo:
# Create the project directory in subversion
$ /usr/bin/svn mkdir
https://foo.com/svn/parent/trunk/project
-m "Make project directory."
Committed revision 200.
# Initialize git-svn, doesn't fetch anything yet
$ git svn init https://foo.com/svn/
-T parent/trunk/project
-t parent/tags/project
-b parent/branches/project
--prefix=svn/
# Set authors so we get prettier authors
$ git config svn.authorsfile ../authors
# Now pull down the svn commits
$ git svn fetch
W: Ignoring error from SVN, ...
W: Do not be alarmed at the above message git-svn ...
This may take a while on large repositories
r200 = (guid) (refs/remotes/svn/trunk)
# We should now see our svn trunk setup under our svn remote
$ git branch -av
* master c3a7161 The latest git commit.
remotes/svn/trunk 3b7fed6 Make project directory.
# Now we want to take all of our local commits and
# rebase them on top of the new svn/trunk
$ git rebase svn/trunk
First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it...
Applying: First git commit
Applying: The latest git commit
# Now we should see our local commits applied
# on top of svn/trunk
$ git lg
* 52b7977 (HEAD, master) The latest git commit
* a34e162 First git commit
* 3b7fed6 (svn/trunk) Make project directory.
# Everything is cool, push it back to svn
$ git svn dcommit
Committing to https://foo.com/svn/parent/trunk/project
...
–prefix=svn
One flag I especially like lately, which you can also use with git svn clone, is --prefix=svn/.
This will prefix all of your tracking branches of the remote Subversion branches, tags, and trunk with svn/, making it look a whole lot like the usual origin/ idiom used by regular git remotes.
With the tracking branches having a prefix, you can also use them as local branch names, e.g.:
# Name your copy of svn/trunk "trunk" instead of "master"
$ git checkout -b trunk master
Switched to a new branch 'trunk'
$ git branch -d master
Deleted branch master (was 33c3136).
$ git branch -av
* trunk 33c3136 Latest svn commit
* remotes/svn/trunk 33c3136 Latest svn commit
Then if you have other branches you want to track:
$ git checkout -b featurea svn/featurea
Almost Really Sweet
Overly, I’ve been very pleased with git-svn over the last few years I’ve been using it.
My one regret is that git-svn will not push merges back to svn, so I have to break down and use the svn command line client to do that.
Surprisingly, Bazaar actually writes back svn:mergeinfo, which I’m very jealous of. Assuming it works well, it’s pretty nifty.