Re: [spf:guess,iffy] Re: [spf:guess] Re: Approaches to SVN to Git conversion (was: Re: [RFC] "Remote helper for Subversion" project)

Thanks - this has really helped my thoughts to crystalise. Here's my plan at this point:

1. Create an "SVN History description" project

This will build on the ASCII format I've been proposing so far. The goal will be to produce a human- and machine-readable format that describes SVN history in terms of an idealised version control system; and to produce a set of tests that any SVN history exporter can use as a testing framework.

2. Create an SVN history exporter

This will build on the svn-branch-export.pl script I previously made available. That script ran in exactly two passes ("configure" and "make") which wrote pointlessly different file formats. The new script will accept an SVN history file as input and create another SVN history file as output, allowing users to iteratively improve the file as Sam described.

3. Create an SVN history importer for git

This will resemble the git-branch-import.pl script I previously made available, but written in C based on the final SVN history format. This thread has convinced me this would be a nice little SoC project, and I'll propose it in another thread if I've got project 1 to a reasonable state before it's too late. Failing that, and if nobody else wants to take this project, I'll have a go myself some day when project 2 is approaching completion.

My next step will be to write up the SVN history work thrown up by this thread. I'll come back to the list for advice when I've got something presentable.

	- Andrew