Re: SCCS to Subversion

Tim Alsop" <Tim.Alsop@CyberSafe.Ltd.UK> asked:
> Has anybody had the need to export an SCCS repository and import it into
> an SVN repository? If so, how did you do it and what should I use or
> watch out for?

Sort of...

I have (still) some SCCS files and a lot more RCS files (mostly created
from SCCS files), and I've transferred some of the RCS files into SVN. The
mechanism I'd use is:

* Convert the SCCS files to RCS.
* Convert the RCS repositories into a CVS lookalike structure.
* Use cvs2svn to convert CVS to SVN.

There is an open source sccs2rcs script (written in C Shell) lurking on
the net somewhere. I have a souped up version (it uses Bourne/Korn shell
instead of C shell) that works better for me - which I submitted at one
point, but I don't know that it was accepted. I can make that available
if you want. What it does, it does well - sufficiently well for me to
trust my SCCS repositories to it without being worried. However, I don't
make much use of branches - that area has not been thoroughly tested, and
you should look at that aspect if you have many branches to worry about.
(Note: my version of sccs2rcs is non-destructive - one of the comments in
my version is "It will NOT delete or alter your SCCS files under any
circumstances. Unlike the C Shell version, it does not extract SCCS files
for editing -- there was never any need to do so." I last modified it in
1998; I last used it last year, but on my 'to do' list is "apply sccs2rcs
to all remaining SCCS files". And I still prefer some parts of SCCS to
RCS - notably the p.files and the keyword handling. Finally, be prepared
for a substantial increase in the amount of disk space used - in my
limited experience, the space used by SVN is considerably bigger than the
space used by RCS or SCCS.)

There was a discussion on this list a month or two ago about how to
convert RCS to CVS sufficiently well for cvs2svn to work - initiated by
me. I'll dig out more information if you need it.

--
Jonathan Leffler (jleffler@us.ibm.com)
STSM, Informix Database Engineering, IBM Data Management
4100 Bohannon Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Tel: +1 650-926-6921   Tie-Line: 630-6921
      "I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it!"
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