How to migrate from SVN to GIT Locally

Question

I'm working on a project that initially used Subversion, but the remote repository was removed and i don't want to use Subversion any more. I want to migrate it to git.

There's a way to do it without the remote repository, keeping all revisions history (without doing a git init . )?

I've already made a subversion to git migration with git-svn with no problems it on other projects, but they were on remote repository and i cannot find any info about migrating it locally.

Answer 1

Subversion is not like Git, it does not keep the repository in your working folder, so you are going to be unable to migrate it.

You will need to create a new repository and check it in as if it was new code.

Answer 2

There's a way to do it without the remote repository, keeping all revisions history (without doing a git init .)?

Short answer: no.

Unlike git, subversion is a centralized version control system, meaning it stores all revisions history in the server .

In contrast, distributed version control systems like git, mercurial , or bazaar store all revisions history locally . In the latter case, you can indeed import/export between repositories with relative ease. In the former, you need the server's presence to do so.

Answer 3

"svn switch --relocate" to the rescue [1].

Firstly you'd have to set up a temporary svn repository in any ordinary server and then relocate your 'local' svn repository (aka working copy) to that server, commit it to there, then use git-svn live you've done before.

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[1] http://webkit.org/blog/97/svn-repository-location-change/

Answer 4

You can only keep the information from the subversion history if you manage to get your hands onto a proper backup of the remote subversion repository that was removed.

Otherwise, the history is lost, and you will just have to start from scratch.

If you do have a backup (such as an rsync copy of the SVN repo files on the server), you can locally do a conversion using git svn by pointing it to the local SVN repo copy via a file:// URL, without doing a special SVN server setup first.