Version Control with Subversion, 2nd Edition

Chapter 2. Basic Usage

Now we will go into the details of using Subversion. By the time you reach the end of this chapter, you will be able to perform all the tasks you need to use Subversion in a normal day’s work. You’ll start with getting your files into Subversion, followed by an initial checkout of your code. We’ll then walk you through making changes and examining those changes. You’ll also see how to bring changes made by others into your working copy, examine them, and work through any conflicts that might arise.

Note that this chapter is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all of Subversion’s commands—rather, it’s a conversational introduction to the most common Subversion tasks that you’ll encounter. This chapter assumes that you’ve read and understood Chapter 1 and are familiar with the general model of Subversion. For a complete reference of all commands, see Chapter 9.

Help!

Before reading on, here is the most important command you’ll ever need when using Subversion: svn help. The Subversion command-line client is self-documenting—at any time, a quick svn help subcommand will describe the syntax, options, and behavior of the subcommand:

$ svn help import import: Commit an unversioned file or tree into the repository. usage: import [PATH] URL Recursively commit a copy of PATH to URL. If PATH is omitted '.' is assumed. Parent directories are created as necessary in the repository. If PATH is a directory, the contents of the directory are added directly under URL. Unversionable ...