Convert Mercurial project to Git [duplicate]

Answer 1

Some notes of my experience converting Mercurial to Git.

1. hg-fast-export

Using hg-fast-export failed and I needed --force as noted above. Next I got this error:

error: cannot lock ref 'refs/heads/stable': 'refs/heads/stable/sub-branch-name' exists; cannot create 'refs/heads/stable'

Upon completion of the hg-fast-export I ended up with an amputated repo. I think that this repo had a good few orphaned branches and that hg-fast-export needs a somewhat idealised repo. This all seemed a bit rough around the edges, so I moved on to Kiln Harmony (http://blog.fogcreek.com/announcing-kiln-harmony-the-future-of-dvcs/)

2. Kiln

Kiln Harmony does not appear to exist on a free tier account as suggested above. I could choose between Git-only and Mercurial-only repos and there is no option to switch. I raised a support ticket and will share the result if they reply.

3. hg-git

The Hg-Git mercurial plugin (http://hg-git.github.io/) did work for me. FYI on Mac OSX I installed hg-git via macports as follows:

• sudo port install python27
• sudo port select --set python python27
• sudo port install py27-hggit
• vi ~/.hgrc

.hgrc needs these lines:

[ui]
username = Name Surname <me@mydomain.com>

[extensions]
hgext.bookmarks =
hggit = 

I then had success with:

hg push git+ssh://git@bitbucket.org:myaccount/myrepo.git

4. Caveat: Know your repo

All the above are blunt instruments and I only pushed ahead because it took enough time to get the team to use git properly.

Upon first pushing the project per (3) I ended up with all new changes missing. This is because this line of code must be viewed as a guide only:

$ hg bookmark -r default master # make a bookmark of master for default, so a ref gets created

The theory is that the default branch can be deemed to be master when pushing to git, and in my case I inherited a repo where they used 'stable' as the equivalent of master. Moreover, I also discovered that the tip of the repo was a hotfix not yet merged with the 'stable' branch.

Without properly understanding both Mercurial and the repo to be converted, you are probably better off not doing the conversion.

I did the following in order to get the repo ready for a second conversion attempt:

hg update -C stable
hg merge stable/hotfix-feature
hg ci -m "Merge with stable branch"
hg push git+ssh://git@bitbucket.org:myaccount/myrepo.git

After this I had a verifiably equivalent project in git, however all the orphaned branches I mentioned earlier are gone. I don't think that is too serious, but I may well live to regret this as an oversight. Therefore my final thought is to keep the original anyway.

Edit: If you just want the latest commit in git, this is simpler than the above merge:

hg book -r tip master
hg push git+ssh://git@bitbucket.org:myaccount/myrepo.git

Answer 2

From:

http://hivelogic.com/articles/converting-from-mercurial-to-git

Migrating

It’s a relatively simple process. First we download fast-export (the best way is via its Git repository, which I’ll clone right to the desktop), then we create a new git repository, perform the migration, and check out the HEAD. On the command line, it goes like this:

cd ~/Desktop
git clone git://repo.or.cz/fast-export.git
git init git_repo
cd git_repo
~/Desktop/fast-export/hg-fast-export.sh -r /path/to/old/mercurial_repo
git checkout HEAD

You should see a long listing of commits fly by as your project is migrated after running fast-export. If you see errors, they are likely related to an improperly specified Python path (see the note above and customize for your system).

That’s it, you’re done.