7
bzr-svn lets developers use Bazaar as their VCS client on projects
8
still using a central Subversion repository. Access to Subversion
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repositories is largely transparent, i.e. you can use most ``bzr``
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commands directly on Subversion repositories exactly the same
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as if you were using ``bzr`` on native Bazaar branches.
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Many bzr-svn users create a local mirror of the central Subversion
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trunk, work in local feature branches, and submit their
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overall change back to Subversion when it is ready
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to go. This lets them gain many of the advantages of distributed
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VCS tools without interrupting existing team-wide processes and
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tool integration hooks currently built on top of Subversion. Indeed,
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this is a common interim step for teams looking to adopt Bazaar but
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who are unable to do so yet for timing or non-technical reasons.
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For installation instructions, see the bzr-svn home page:
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http://bazaar-vcs.org/BzrForeignBranches/Subversion.
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Here's a simple example of how you can use bzr-svn to hack on a
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GNOME project like **beagle**. Firstly, setup a local shared repository
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for storing your branches in and checkout the trunk::
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bzr init-repo --rich-root-pack beagle-repo
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bzr checkout svn+ssh://svn.gnome.org/svn/beagle/trunk beagle-trunk
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Note that using the ``rich-root-pack`` option to ``init-repo`` is
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important as bzr-svn requires some extra metadata not yet supported in Bazaar's
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default repository format. Next, create a feature branch and hack away::
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bzr branch beagle-trunk beagle-feature1
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bzr commit -m "blah blah blah"
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bzr commit -m "blah blah blah"
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When the feature is cooked, refresh your trunk mirror and merge
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bzr merge ../beagle-feature1
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bzr commit -m "Complete comment for SVN commit"
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As your trunk mirror is a checkout, committing to it implicitly
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commits to the real Subversion trunk. That's it!
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Using a central repository mirror
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---------------------------------
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For large projects, it often makes sense to tweak the recipe given above.
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In particular, the initial checkout can get quite slow so you may wish
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to import the Subversion repository into a Bazaar one once and for all
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for your project, and then branch from that native Bazaar repository
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instead. bzr-svn provides the ``svn-import`` command for doing this
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repository-to-repository conversion. Here's an example of how to use it::
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bzr init-repo --rich-root-pack beagle.bzr
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bzr svn-import svn+ssh://svn.gnome.org/svn/beagle
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Here's the recipe from above updated to use a central Bazaar mirror::
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bzr init-repo --rich-root-pack beagle-repo
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bzr branch bzr+ssh://bzr.gnome.org/beagle.bzr/trunk beagle-trunk
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bzr branch beagle-trunk beagle-feature1
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bzr commit -m "blah blah blah"
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bzr commit -m "blah blah blah"
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bzr merge ../beagle-feature1
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bzr commit -m "Complete comment for SVN commit"
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In this case, committing to the trunk only commits the merge locally.
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To commit back to the master Subversion trunk, an additional command
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(``bzr push``) is required.
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Note: You'll need to give ``pull`` and ``push`` the relevant URLs
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the first time you use those commands in the trunk branch. After that,
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The final piece of the puzzle in this setup is to put scripts in
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place to keep the central Bazaar mirror synchronized with the Subversion
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one. This can be done by adding a cron job, using a Subversion hook,
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or whatever makes sense in your environment.
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Limitations of bzr-svn
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----------------------
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Bazaar and Subversion are different tools with different capabilities
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so there will always be some limited interoperability issues.
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Here are some examples current as of bzr-svn 0.4.10:
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* Bazaar doesn't support versioned properties
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* Bazaar doesn't support tracking of file copies.
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* ``bzr push`` to an existing Subversion branch works but
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``bzr push`` to a new Subversion branch doesn't. Until
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the relevant bug is fixed (#121875), you need to use
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``bzr svn-push`` in the latter case.
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See the bzr-svn web page,
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http://bazaar-vcs.org/BzrForeignBranches/Subversion,
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for the current list of constraints.