Export SVN to Git

18 July 2014

This article explains the fastest and easiest way to export an SVN repository to Git. There are lots of explanations of this online but none handle complex SVN folder structures well.

Simple versus complex SVN folders

If your SVN repository has only trunk, branch, and tags you can use the standard export command:

git svn clone -r0:HEAD --follow-parent --prefix=origin/ --stdlayout http://svn.com/svn/project

But if your repository starts in a subfolder or has branches in subfolders this process will break. For example:

http://svn.com/svn/ourcompany/project/trunk
http://svn.com/svn/ourcompany/project/branches/features/newlogo
http://svn.com/svn/ourcompany/project/branches/bugfixes/updatelogin

The complete process

Make a temporary folder somewhere and open a command prompt in it. Run:

git svn init --prefix=svnorigin/ --no-minimize-url --trunk=trunk http://svn.com/svn/ourcompany/project
Alter the config file in the .git folder to add every branch you want to take to Git. The SVN folder is on the left and the new Git branch name is on the right:

[svn-remote "svn"]
    url = http://svn.com/svn/ourcompany
    fetch = project/trunk:refs/remotes/svnorigin/prod
    fetch = project/features/newlogo:refs/remotes/svnorigin/feature_newlogo
    fetch = project/bugfixes/updatelogin:refs/remotes/svnorigin/bugfix_updatelogin

Run this for a few hours (Note: run all git commands in the folder above .git, not in .git). You can run this command multiple times to keep getting updates from SVN if people are still working on it:

git svn fetch > clonewars.txt

Copy the folder and work in the new one so you have a backup.
Create a local branch for each remote you want (ignore the @number branches). To do this right-click on the folder - TortoiseSVN - Switch/Checkout
Delete the entire svn-remote section above from the config file.
Open a command prompt in the folder and run this to copy your project to Github (or BitBucket or wherever):

git remote add github https://github.com/MyCompany/project.git
git push github --all

Make prod the default branch in the Github project settings page and delete the master branch

How to empty a Github repository entirely without deleting it

If you make a mistake and need to clear github entirely do this in a new folder:

git init
(Add an empty file and commit it)
git remote add github https://github.com/MyCompany/project.git
git push github --mirror

Add issue numbers in commits like TortoiseSVN

Finally, if you want to add numbers to commits in TortoiseGit put the following section in your new repository's /.git/config file:

[bugtraq]
    url = http://jira.mycompany.com:8080/browse/%BUGID%
    number = false
    warnifnoissue = true
    message = http://jira.mycompany.com:8080/browse/%BUGID%
    label = Issue number
    append = false