Re: Getting CVS and Git to play nicely in the same box

From: Robin Rosenberg <robin.rosenberg.lists@dewire.com>
Date: Nov 30, 2006, 22:21 UTC
Message-ID: <200611302321.19129.robin.rosenberg.lists@dewire.com>
In-Reply-To: <1164890354.21950.92.camel@okra.transitives.com>

torsdag 30 november 2006 13:39 skrev Alex Bennee:

Show 47 quoted lines

> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to get a setup where I can use git for my day to day coding
> on problems but still mirror a CVS repo. The situation is muddied
> slightly by the way we manage changes in our CVS repository and
> baselines.
>
> The CVS manner of working means we create a branch at a given point to
> do work on it:
>
>           BL1_CH2
>          /
>         /
>        BL1_CH1
> BL1---/
>
> And then in the meantime a new baseline may be released:
>
>
> BL2    BL1_CH2
>
> |     /
> |     BL1_CH1
>
> BL1--/
>
> So we employ the "cvs -q update -dP -j BL1 -j BL2" on our development
> branch
>
>           BL2_CH2
>          /
> BL2     BL1_CH2
>
> |      /
> |    BL1_CH1
>
> BL1--/
>
> I want to mirror this sort of behaviour it git (basically making the
> cvs -j -j operation a git merge, separate from the normal development
> track). I however also need to maintain the CVS meta-data so when I get to
> given points I can commit my work into the main development server.
>
> I can set up a git repo that ignore all the CVS gubbins with exclude info
> but the CVS metadata gets in the way. I think I have to maintain two git
> repos, one that tracks the baseline and one which is a clone (which can
> then pull updates) but has the CVS meta data for my development branch.

You don't need to use GIT to track metadata (I asume you mean CVS/Entries) is not necessary. Use a plain CVS checkout for that and cvsexportcommit to it.

> However CVS does seem to get very confused when the world moves under it
> when you switch branches in GIT.

Exaktly. Forget about it, it won't work and there is a simpler solution.

> Has anyone successfully set up such a working environment? Can anyone offer
> any tips on how to make it all work nicely?

My setup is like this:

- A tracking repo on a server runs git-cvsimport every night.
- I pull from the tracking repo
- I have a CVS checkout for the branch I'm interested in committing to
- Then I use cvsexportcommit to export changes back to CVS. Actuallly I use a 
small script that runs cvs update and then exports the changes defined by a 
named commit so I say "tocvs a-commitid--tag-or-stgit-patch-name".

Since I use StGit I get no problem from my changes coming back through the cvsimport executed on the server. StGit makes the patches empty when my own code returns from CVS.