Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Understanding version control 2

Why use version control 3, The repository 3, Checkout strategies 3, Commit and update 5, What are change logs? 5, The role of properties 7

30,000 foot view of Subversion 8

Atomic commits 9, Everything is versioned 9, The three components of Subversion 9

Revision numbers 10

The old way 11, Subversion revision numbers 12

Summary 14

Getting started 15

Getting Subversion 16

Which package to get? 16, Installing on Windows 17, Installing on Linux 17, Subversion is installed; what now? 18

Command-line interface 19

Different clients 19, Getting help 20, Paths and URLs 21

Creating a repository 22

Finding a location for the repository 22, Permissions 23, Svnadmin create 24, Internal repository directories and files 25

Common options 26

Recursion 26, Entering the log message 27, Accessing specific revisions 30, Authentication 32

Importing your files into Subversion 33

A basic import 33, Changing what you import 34, Changing where you import 35

Checking out the repository 35

Finding your starting point 35, A simple checkout 36, The .svn directory 37, Checking out specific versions 37, Changing the paths 38

Committing changes 39

A path to commit 40, What and when do you commit? 40, Out-of-date transactions 41

Summary 43

Managing your working copy 44

Checking the state of your working copy 45

Understanding the status codes 45, Running the status command 48, Trimming your file list 49, Getting more information 51, Checking ignored files 51, Repository changes 52, When to use the status 53

Updating your working copy 54

Running the update command 54, Update status codes 55, Updating to specific revisions 55

Conflicts 59

Resolution files 59, Resolution scenarios 60, Cleaning up the conflict 64

Adding files and directories 65

Adding a single file 65, Adding a directory and its contents 66, Wildcards 68

Copying 68

Where is my previous version? 69, Making a local copy 70

Moving and renaming 71

Moving files in the working copy 72, Directories 73, Moving directly in the repository 74, Implications of moving files on previous revisions 74

Removing files from the repository 75

Running the remove command 76, Directories 77

Summary 78

Getting change information 79

Viewing change logs 80

Running the log command 80, Change logs for directories 81, Suppressing the log messages 83, Logs for specific revisions 84, Viewing the change paths 87, Stopping the change logs from a copy 89, Formatting the change logs 90, Changing log messages 94

Getting a list of files 96

A simple list 96, Verbose 97, Revisions 98, Recursive listing 98, List from URL 99, Old or nonexistent files 99

Comparing revisions 100

The diff syntax 100, Running the diff command on your local copy 102, Specifying revisions 103, Running diff directly from the repository 105, Using other diff programs 107, Running diff on directories 109

Looking at file contents 111

Running the cat command 111, Revision numbers 112, URLs 112

Annotating a file 113

Running the annotate command 114, Annotating specific revisions 114, Directly accessing the repository 115, Be cautious when using annotate 115

Summary 117

Branches and tags 119

Branching overview 120

What is a branch? 120, When should you use branches? 122, Branching strategies 124, Project root layout 126

Creating branches 130

Creating a branch from a working copy 130, Copying directly into the repository from a working copy 131, Creating a branch on a checkout 133, Repository to repository 134, Creating a branch from a specific revision 135

Changing repository URLs 136

Recursion 137, Moving repositories 138, Switching to an old revision 139

Merging revisions 140

A simple merge 140, Moving changes from a branch 141, Merging a single file 142, Conflicts 142, Keeping track of your merges 142, Doing a dry run 145

Tags in Subversion 146

Summary 147

Properties 148

Properties overview 149

Name/value pairs 149, Properties are versioned 150

Adding a property to an object 151

Applying properties to a directory 152, Passing in arguments as file contents 153, Editing property values 155, Removing properties 156

Listing properties on an object 159

Listing the name and value 159, Property listings on a directory 160, Listing the properties of a specific revision 161

Getting the value of a property 161

Running the propget 161, Getting properties on multiple files 162, Getting older revisions 162, Removing extra characters from the output 163

Built-in properties 164

Ignore property 164, Keywords 169, Executable property 172, End-of-line style 173, Externals 174

Revision properties 176

Default revision properties 176, Adding properties 176, Viewing revision properties 177, Changing the properties 178

Summary 178

Repository administration 180

Backing up your repository 181

Dumping the repository 181, Loading from a dump file 185, Creating a hot backup of a repository 187, Exporting a non-versioned copy 188

Setting up network access with svnserve 189

Choosing between svnserve and Apache 190, Running the default configuration 191, Svnserve configuration file 192, Setting up authorization 194, Changing the URL 197, Changing the svnserve network settings 197, Running svnserve from the Linux xinetd 198, Running svnserve with ssh 199

Setting up access with the Apache HTTP server 200

Getting the modules set up 200, A basic setup 201, Multiple repositories 203, Users and authentication 203, Configuring authorization 205, Encrypting the transmission 208, Repository browsing 210

Summary 213

Advanced administration and configuration 214

Client-side configuration 215

Configuration files 215, Configuring the server connection information 217, SSL settings 220, Command configurations 221, Authentication caching 226

Resolving deadlocks 227

Working copy locks 227

Berkeley DB 229

Transaction logs 229, Old transactions 230

Hooks 231

Commit actions 232, Revision property actions 233, Scripts 234

Summary 240

Subversion utility clients 241

The svnlook interface 242

Transactions and revisions 242

Getting change log information 243

Getting the author 243, Finding the date of a revision 244, Viewing the log message 244, Getting all the change information 244, Finding the files that changed 245

Getting information on properties 245

Listing the properties 246, Getting the value of a property 247

Finding out what changed 249

Getting the differences between revisions 249, Viewing the entire contents of a file 250, Finding the directories that changed 251, Looking at the entire tree 251, Getting change information on a directory 252, Getting repository information with svnlook 253

Other Subversion programs 254

The svnversion tool 254, The svndumpfilter interface 256

Summary 262

Third-party tools 263

Importing a CVS repository 264

Getting cvs2svn 264, Creating a Subversion dump from CVS 265, Changing the project root information 268, Converting directly into a Subversion repository 269

Eclipse plug-in 271

Getting Subclipse 271, Using Subclipse 272, Using the command line versus the plug-in 275

Subversion browsing over Apache with a browser 275

Configuration 276, Using WebSVN 278

Windows graphical user interface 278

Installing TortoiseSVN 278, Checking out a repository 280, Checking the status 281, Committing to the repository 282, Running other commands 282

Summary 283

Subversion in a development lifecycle 284

Setting up your environment 285

Ignored files 285, Using autoprops 285, Getting plug-ins and other tools 286

Writing code 286

Bug fixes 287, Patches 289

Promoting code 292

Properties 293, Tags 294, Automating code promotion 295

Testing and Subversion 296

Maintaining the testing environment 296, Locking down properties 297

Summary 297

 
Appendix A: SSL certificates 299
Appendix B: Building Subversion 307
index 313