darcs-to-git

Converts a Darcs repository into a Git repository. Supports incremental updates, i.e., you can pull new patches from the source repository or import a large repository in steps.

Usage

(Use darcs-to-git --help to display the latest usage instructions.)

1. Create an empty directory that will become the new git repository
2. From inside that directory, run this program, passing the location of the local source darcs repo as a parameter

The program will git-init the empty directory, and migrate all patches in the source darcs repo into commits in that repository.

Thereafter, incremental patch conversion from the same source repo is possible by repeating step 2.

Options

• --patches N: only import N patches.

• --email-address ADDRESS: darcs-to-git tries to reconstruct the email address from the darcs patch. In cases this is not possible, a default will be picked by Git. This is usually the one in ~/.gitconfig. This option allows you to specify another default (without having to to modify ~/.gitconfig.)

• --list-authors: Outputs a list of authors in the source repository and how they will appear in the git repository and quits. The output will be lines like this:

  Jane@example.com: Jane <Jane@example.com>
  

  This means that the darcs author Jane@example.com will be translated to git-author Jane with email address Jane@example.com. You can use the output of this command as a starting point for the input for --author-map.

• --author-map FILENAME: Allows translations from darcs committer name to Git committer name. The input is a YAML map. For an example see the output of --list-authors. The author map will be stored in the repository and will be re-used for future imports.

Known issues

When darcs-to-git pulls a conflicting patch it will revert the state of the repository to the state before the conflict. This will also remove any local changes to your repository, including git commits! You should therefore not commit to the branch you import to, but instead work in a different branch. You can rename your master branch after import using:

$ git branch -m darcs_import

darcs-to-git creates a full copy of the original repository in addition to the Git repository; this can lead to considerable space usage. You can save space by treating the copied Darcs repository as a branch by running

$ darcs optimize --relink --sibling /old-repo/dir

inside the new repository.

Acknowledgements

Written and maintained by Steve Purcell, with some improvements by Thomas Schilling, Jonathon Mah and others.

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