Re: [PATCH] git-cvsimport.txt: cvsps-2 is deprecated

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 12:04:11PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

John Keeping [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

git-cvsimport relies on version 2 of cvsps and does not work with the
new version 3.  Since cvsps 3.x does not currently work as well as
version 2 for incremental import, document this fact.

Specifically, there is no way to make new git-cvsimport that supports
cvsps 3.x and have a seamless transition for existing users since cvsps
3.x needs a time from which to continue importing and git-cvsimport does
not save the time of the last import or import into a specific namespace
so there is no safe way to calculate the time of the last import.

Isn't the whole "and git-cvsimport does not save the time..."  part
something that can be fixed in the new cvsimport that reads the
output from cvsps3?

Yes it can be fixed there (and I have patches to do that) - my argument
here is that there cannot be a seamless upgrade for people who are
currently using git-cvsimport incrementally.  If you don't have that
file then how do you create it to reflect the current state of your
repository?

To me, it sounds more like

    cvsps2 + cvsimport has an unfixable bugs and there have been an
    effort to rewrite cvsps2 from scratch.  The resulting cvsp3
    currently is unusable with cvsimport, especially when importing
    the history incrementally, and it isn't expected that it will
    ever be usable with cvsimport again.

cvsps3 isn't a re-write, it's cvsps2 with a lot of things ripped out and
a fast-export mode added.  And in fast-export mode it cannot inspect the
Git repository in the same way that git-cvsimport does.

    There are other tools that analyse the original history better
    and emits more correct output when used to convert the whole
    history, and hopefully cvsps3 + fast-import would become one of
    them.  Suggest users to use them instead of cvsimport when they
    are not doing an incremental import.

Yes.  The consensus seems to be that cvs2git is the most correct.

By the way, do we want to make any recommendation to the distro
folks which cvsps they should ship?  It appears that not shipping
cvsps2 would be a major regression if cvsps3 does not plan to
support incrementals, so shipping both might be the safest way for
them to support their users with different needs.

I agree.  cvsps is only one binary and a man page so I don't think it
would be too hard to ship both.


John