Example
Just use your local git repository as a normal git repo, with the normal git commands:
git add FILEandgit checkout -- FILETo stage/unstage a filegit commitTo save your changes. Those commits will be local and will not be "pushed" to the SVN repo, just like in a normal git repositorygit stashandgit stash popAllows using stashesgit reset HEAD --hardRevert all your local changesgit logAccess all the history in the repositorygit rebase -iso you can rewrite your local history freelygit branchandgit checkoutto create local branches
As the git-svn documentation states "Subversion is a system that is far less sophisticated than Git" so you can't use all the full power of git without messing up the history in the Subversion server. Fortunately the rules are very simple: Keep the history linear
This means you can make almost any git operation: creating branches, removing/reordering/squashing commits, move the history around, delete commits, etc. Anything but merges. If you need to reintegrate the history of local branches use git rebase instead.
When you perform a merge, a merge commit is created. The particular thing about merge commits is that they have two parents, and that makes the history non-linear. Non-linear history will confuse SVN in the case you "push" a merge commit to the repository.
However do not worry: you won't break anything if you "push" a git merge commit to SVN. If you do so, when the git merge commit is sent to the svn server it will contain all the changes of all commits for that merge, so you will lose the history of those commits, but not the changes in your code.
