I recently decided to consolidate all my source code repositories into Git. Here are the instructions I used to convert my Subversion repositories. For more information, check git-scm.com.
Create a working folder
Create an empty working folder. Location and name are unimportant. We’ll be using ~/temp for this article.
mkdir ~/temp
cd ~/temp
Clone repository from Subversion
Convert the repository from Subversion to Git. Make sure you create an authors-file and reference it in the following command.
git svn clone http://svn.example.com/<repository> -A ~/authors.txt -T trunk -t tags -b branches <repository>
Move into repository
cd <repository>
Check for ignored folders or files
Check the repository for svn:ignore properties.
git svn show-ignore
Sometimes we need to ignore the contents of a folder but we want to keep the folder itself in the repository. Make sure the folder is empty before proceeding.
touch path/to/folder/.gitkeep
git add path/to/folder/.gitkeep
Repeat the above steps for all empty folders.
git commit -m "Forcing empty folder(s) into repository."
If ignored folders or files are found.
git svn show-ignore > .gitignore
git add .gitignore
git commit -m "Converted svn:ignore properties to .gitignore."
Reset file permissions
Reset your file permissions to start clean.
find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
Commit the changes.
git add .
git commit -m "Reset file permissions."
Check for external modules
Check the repository for svn:externals properties.
git svn show-externals
If external references are found, add each external repository.
git submodule add git://github.com/pbougie/<repository>.git path/to/<repository>
If you need to check out an earlier commit for a submodule.
cd path/to/<submodule>
git checkout <hash>
cd ../../..
git add path/to/<submodule>
Commit the included submodule(s).
git commit -m "Converted svn:externals properties to .gitmodules."
Remove the trunk branch
Since we are not going back to Subversion, we can remove the trunk branch.
git branch -rd trunk
Move out of the repository
cd ..
Create a bare repository
Create a bare repository to copy to a remote server.
git clone --bare <repository> <repository>.git
Copy the repository to a remote server
Copy the bare repository to a remote server so your colleagues can access it as well.
scp -r <repository>.git username@example.com:/path/to/git/repositories
You can delete the temporary repositories on your local server. They are no longer needed.
Clone the repository to your development server
Create a working copy and test the cloning process to make sure everything behaves as expected.
cd ~/Sites
git clone ssh://username@example.com/path/to/git/repositories/<repository>.git
If your project includes submodules.
cd <repository>
git submodule init
git submodule update
You now have a fully converted Git repository. Enjoy all the benefits of using Git. Repeat for each repository.
