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diff --git a/Documentation/cvs-migration.txt b/Documentation/cvs-migration.txt index 146c60944..229c129f9 100644 --- a/Documentation/cvs-migration.txt +++ b/Documentation/cvs-migration.txt @@ -1,4 +1,92 @@ -CVS annotate. +Git for CVS users +================= + +Ok, so you're a CVS user. That's ok, it's a treatable condition, and the +first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. The fact that +you are reading this file means that you may be well on that path +already. + +The thing about CVS is that it absolutely sucks as a source control +manager, and you'll thus be happy with almost anything else. Git, +however, may be a bit _too_ different (read: "good") for your taste, and +does a lot of things differently. + +One particular suckage of CVS is very hard to work around: CVS is +basically a tool for tracking _file_ history, while git is a tool for +tracking _project_ history. This sometimes causes problems if you are +used to doign very strange things in CVS, in particular if you're doing +things like making branches of just a subset of the project. Git can't +track that, since git never tracks things on the level of an individual +file, only on the whole project level. + +The good news is that most people don't do that, and in fact most sane +people think it's a bug in CVS that makes it tag (and check in changes) +one file at a time. So most projects you'll ever see will use CVS +_as_if_ it was sane. In which case you'll find it very easy indeed to +move over to Git. + +First off: this is not a git tutorial. See Documentation/tutorial.txt +for how git actually works. This is more of a random collection of +gotcha's and notes on converting from CVS to git. + +Second: CVS has the notion of a "repository" as opposed to the thing +that you're actually working in (your working directory, or your +"checked out tree"). Git does not have that notion at all, and all git +working directories _are_ the repositories. However, you can easily +emulate the CVS model by having one special "global repository", which +people can synchronize with. See details later, but in the meantime +just keep in mind that with git, every checked out working tree will be +a full revision control of its own. + + +Importing a CVS archive +----------------------- + +Ok, you have an old project, and you want to at least give git a chance +to see how it performs. The first thing you want to do (after you've +gone through the git tutorial, and generally familiarized yourself with +how to commit stuff etc in git) is to create a git'ified version of your +CVS archive. + +Happily, that's very easy indeed. Git will do it for you, although git +will need the help of a program called "cvsps": + + http://www.cobite.com/cvsps/ + +which is not actually related to git at all, but which makes CVS usage +look almost sane (ie you almost certainly want to have it even if you +decide to stay with CVS). However, git will want at _least_ version 2.1 +of cvsps (available at the address above), and in fact will currently +refuse to work with anything else. + +Once you've gotten (and installed) cvsps, you may or may not want to get +any more familiar with it, but make sure it is in your path. After that, +the magic command line is + + git cvsimport <cvsroot> <module> + +which will do exactly what you'd think it does: it will create a git +archive of the named CVS module. The new archive will be created in a +subdirectory named <module>. + +It can take some time to actually do the conversion for a large archive, +and the conversion script can be reasonably chatty, but on some not very +scientific tests it averaged about eight revisions per second, so a +medium-sized project should not take more than a couple of minutes. + + +Emulating CVS behaviour +----------------------- + + +FIXME! Talk about setting up several repositories, and pulling and +pushing between them. Talk about merging, and branches. Some of this +needs to be in the tutorial too. + + + +CVS annotate +------------ The core GIT itself does not have a "cvs annotate" equivalent. It has something that you may want to use when you would use |