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I'm attempting to move an svn repository to a git repository. I don't want to use svn anymore so I am using the no-metadata option. I'm curious why, after doing git svn fetch there are only remote refs created to my branches. I'm creating the repo using:

git svn init -s --username=$SVNUSER --no-metadata http://URLTOSVN/$REPO
git config svn.authorsfile ../$USERFILE
git svn fetch

after running the fetch, if I look at the branches I have:

prompt$ git branch -a
* master
remotes/BRANCH_1
remotes/BRANCH_2
remotes/trunk

I need BRANCH_1 and BRANCH_2 branches but it doesn't seem to be creating them. Now when I clone this using the --bare option so I can host it in my central repo it ignores those remote refs and my resulting git repo has no knowledge of those branches as far as I can tell. I need those branches in my resulting repo. What am I missing?

Chrissy
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1 Answers1

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This means the remote branches are available but you do not currently have them as local branches. You should be able to retrieve them with a git fetch:

git fetch origin [remote-branch]:[new-local-branch]

i.e.

git fetch origin BRANCH_1:BRANCH_1

Here's a bash script I've used previously for transferring svn repos to git. This will give you a bare git repo on the machine it is run in the current directory:

#!/bin/bash

REPO=$1
REPO_tmp=$REPO"_tmp"
USERFILE="/tmp/users.txt"

echo $REPO " > " $REPO_tmp

mkdir $REPO_tmp
cd $REPO_tmp
echo `pwd`

svn log http://URLTOSVN/$REPO|grep \| | awk 'BEGIN { FS = "|" }; {print $2}' | awk '{print $1 " = " $1 " <" $1 "@domain.com>"}' | sort | uniq > $USERFILE

git svn init http://URLTOSVN/$REPO --no-metadata

git config svn.authorsfile $USERFILE
git svn fetch

cd ..

git clone --bare $REPO_tmp $REPO.git

That will also preserve your svn log history. You will probably need to fiddle with the connection parameters as I actually used svn+ssh, not http. Looking at a repo I imported and then cloned that did have branches I see examples like this:

git branch -a
* master
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/signup

In your bare repo the branches should just have their name. ie:

git branch -a
* master
  BRANCH1
  BRANCH2

However I found I was able to create a branch named remotes/branch1, so it may be that you actually have local branches that are just weirdly named. You can try swicthing with:

git checkout remotes/BRANCH_2
Ilion
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  • Thanks. When I try that I get `fatal: 'origin' does not appear to be a git repository fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly` I guess that is because of the --no-metadata flag? I also want to do the above in a script for other repos so I might not know the name of the branch. Seems like there should be a way to just automatically create local branches from all remotes when doing the svn fetch? – Chrissy Feb 09 '12 at 23:25
  • what do you get if you do `git fetch remotes BRANCH_1:BRANCH_1`? – Ilion Feb 09 '12 at 23:55
  • I get the same error as above when I do `git fetch remotes` instead of `git fetch origin`. – Chrissy Feb 10 '12 at 00:33
  • Running `git checkout remotes/BRANCH_1` looks like it works. But I get the following message that I'm not sure what it means. `You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in this state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout. If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may do so (now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example: git checkout -b new_branch_name` – Chrissy Feb 10 '12 at 00:39
  • There's a few ways to end up in a detached HEAD state. Basically it means that anything you do is *not* currently part of a branch. This is an odd way of getting to it. I'd suggest doing exactly what the error message states and running `git checkout -b BRANCH1`, then doing the switch to remotes/BRANCH2. I expect you will get the same message and you can then run `git checkout -b BRANCH2`. Once that's done you should have two good local branches. You can then remove the weird branches and clone your bare repo. – Ilion Feb 10 '12 at 00:45
  • Ok, done. This will work and I will question the git gods no further and just manually add branches if I need to for future repos. Often I don't want to preserve most of the branches anyway. Thanks for your help! – Chrissy Feb 10 '12 at 00:57