Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Create and track svn branches using git-svn

My most recent client is utilizing svn for the source control needs.  While I used to be a big svn guy, I've more recently been using git and have found the transition back to svn a little awkward.

Enter: git-svn.  I love git-svn because I can exist in a svn environment without giving up all the things I love about git.  One thing that continually escapes my memory is how to create a svn branch from the git CLI as well as how to associate a git branch with a svn branch.

This blog entry is my own cheat-sheet.

Say, I want to create a svn branch off of the trunk.  Here's what I would do:

$ git checkout master
$ git svn rebase
$ git svn branch -m "Creating a feature branch" feature_1001
$ git svn dcommit
$ git checkout -b my_feature_1001 feature_1001

Another thing that isn't so intuitive is merging your changes back to trunk when you're done.  Here's what I would do:


$ git checkout feature_1001
$ git rebase master
$ git checkout master
$ git merge feature_1001
$ git svn dcommit
$ git branch -D feature_1001

Then I have to use a svn client to actually delete the svn branch.

Also, if a svn branch is removed, you need to remove it by hand from git with

$ git branch -rd feature_1001