Convert from RCS to Git

Convert from RCS to Git

Let's say you have something like:

  /home/dap/workspace/awesome_code

Which contains your project files along with RCS:

  awesome_code/
    RCS/
    code.pl
    README

Here's how to convert that RCS directory to a git repo.

1. Grab git from http://git-scm.com/download and build (but don't install it):
   $ cd ~/workspace
   $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git
   $ cd git
   $ make

2. Grab parsecvs from http://gitorious.org/parsecvs and build it:
   $ cd ~/workspace
   $ git clone git://gitorious.org/parsecvs/mainline.git parsecvs
   $ cd parsecvs
   $ make

3. Import your project:
   $ cd ~/workspace/awesome_code
   $ find -name '*,v' | ../parsecvs/parsecvs -l ../parsecvs/edit-change-log -p 1024

4. Clone your project:
   $ cd ~/workspace
   $ git clone awesome_code really_awesome_code

5. Now it's soup.

Of course you can install parsecvs and edit-change-log
however you see fit. Change paths as appropriate.

This how-to assumes that git binaries are already installed.
However, the git source is required in order to build parsecvs.

unfortunately, git://gitorious.org/parsecvs/mainline.git parsecvs is no longer available.

For future folk, this worked at time of writing.

env GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY=true git clone https://gitorious.org/parsecvs/mainline.git

but one may be interested in https://github.com/BartMassey/parsecvs