Am 01.01.2012 01:27 schrieb Tomas Carnecky: > On 12/31/11 8:04 PM, nn6eumtr wrote: >> I have a number of older projects that I want to bring into a git >> repository. They predate a lot of the popular scm systems, so they are >> primarily a collection of tarballs today. >> >> I'm fairly new to git so I have a couple questions related to this: >> >> - What is the best approach for bringing them in? Do I just create a >> repository, then unpack the files, commit them, clean out the >> directory unpack the next tarball, and repeat until everything is loaded? >> >> - Do I need to pay special attention to files that are renamed/removed >> from version to version? >> >> - If the timestamps change on a file but the actual content does not, >> will git treat it as a non-change once it realizes the content hasn't >> changed? >> >> - Last, if after loading the repository I find another version of the >> files that predates those I've loaded, or are intermediate between two >> commits I've already loaded, is there a way to go say that commit B is >> actually the ancestor of commit C? (i.e. a->c becomes a->b->c if you >> were to visualize the commit timeline or do diffs) Or do I just reload >> the tarballs in order to achieve this? > > There is a script which will import sources from multiple tarballs, > creating a commit with the contents of each tarball. It's in the git > repository under contrib/fast-import/import-tars.perl. > > tom @tom: True. I didn't know about that script, but it should work. @nn6eumtr: Basically your workflow is perfect. But let me give you some explanation: git init foreach archive in *.tar; do tar xf $archive git add --all . git commit -m "Added $archive" # now remove everything except for the .git directory # with regular shell commands (rm -rf *). Also remove # any dot-files (and the tarball itself, if it's in the # current directory). done Notice the '--all' switch to 'git add': Normally, 'git add .' adds all files that match the given pattern '.', i.e. all files in the current directory (and below, it's recursive). The '--all' switch together with the pattern '.' adds or updates all files already known to git *AND* adds the files not yet known *AND* removes the files that are no longer in the working tree. That's exactly what you want. Consider archive1.tar with files A, B, C: git add --all . # will add A, B, and C Now remove A, B, C, and unpack archive2.tar. Assume it has files B, C, D. A was deleted, B was changed, C is unchanged, D is new. git add --all . # will remove A, add B, leave C, add D. git will notice that C hasn't changed its content (timestamp doesn't matter). Without the '--all' switch, git would simply add B and D. There is no problem re-arranging the history after your import (see "git rebase --help", especially the --interactive section), but then you probably will have conflicts and have to resolve them. I'd suggest to re-start the import instead. Please note that "for archive in *.tar" will pick the tarballs in lexicographical order. That might not be your intention. HTH, Dirk -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html