Support - Institutionen för Datavetenskap / Department of Computing Science

SVN

This is a short introduction on how Subversion functions.

Use

If the environment is not established (i.e, the first time that the particular account or module is accessed), then proceed as follows:
  • Log on
    svn checkout --username c74xyz svn://svn.cs.umu.se/2007/5dv999/c74xyz_c74foo 5dv999_2007
    Type in the password for USER
To work subsequently with a module which has already been checked out it is not necessary to specify either the module name or the user name, as this information is retained in the directory .svn in every directory of the module. (you shouldn't modify anything in there though)
  • Check if there is anything to update:
    svn status -u
    Example:
    M      *        2   apa
Status against revision:      3
    This says that apa is locally Modified, the * denotes that there are updates available to this file and you have revision 2 of the file. The repository is at revision 3.
  • Update (fetch the modifications of others):
    svn update
    Modifications to files will be merged where possible. If both you and someone else has made changes to the same line, you will get a conflict. It will be marked in the source code, use svn resolved FILE afterwards to say you are done or svn revert FILE to undo your changes and just keep the latest from SVN.
  • Compare the saved version with that in the SVN tree:
    svn diff FILES
    (FILES not specified = check everything)
  • Check in a change to the SVN tree:
    svn commit FILES
    (FILES not specified = commit all changes)
  • Create a new directory in the SVN tree:
    svn mkdir NEWDIR
  • Insert a file in the SVN tree:
    svn add FILES

For information about various commands, use svn help update for instance.

Basic work cycle taken from the SVN Book

  • Update your working copy
    • svn update
  • Make changes
    • svn add
    • svn delete
    • svn copy
    • svn move
  • Examine your changes
    • svn status
    • svn diff
  • Possibly undo some changes
    • svn revert
  • Resolve Conflicts (Merge Others' Changes)
    • svn update
    • svn resolved
  • Commit your changes
    • svn commit

GUI

On the Linux machines, the GUI 'rapidsvn' is installed. It will probably be installed on the Windows machines soon too.

Further reading

Jan-Erik Moströms tutorial
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/
http://subversion.tigris.org/
Subversion in Eclipse [ibm.com]