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Why SubVersion SVN can be a pain

Posted By: varun krishnan Published in Coding Tags: Coding

Jun

I was faced with a really annoying situation today. I was tempted to try Open-Source source control after a lot of VSS and TFS usage.

I tried CVS using WinCVS.

SubVersion has become famous recently and just wanted to give it a try. There’s also a pretty Windows client called TortoiseSVN Now after moving the stuff into the repository , I saw that both CVS and SVN create directories called ‘CVS’ and ‘.svn’ everywhere inside the project. Now I wanted to FTP the files to my site. But a crazy bug bit me with SVN. I saw even the damn .svn directories being moved to the site ? WTH ?

I wanted to move only the source code and not the file version information.

This blog entry came to my rescue Shell Command – Remove SVN Folders

Its a Windows hack which adds a context menu into windows explorer

I modified the script a bit to add CVS removal support

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\DeleteSVN] @="Delete SVN Folders"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\DeleteSVN\command] @="cmd.exe /c \"TITLE Removing SVN Folders in %1 && COLOR 9A && FOR /r \"%1\" %%f IN (.svn) DO RD /s /q \"%%f\" \""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\DeleteCVS] @="Delete CVS Folders"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\DeleteCVS\command] @="cmd.exe /c \"TITLE Removing CVS Folders in %1 && COLOR 9A && FOR /r \"%1\" %%f IN (CVS) DO RD /s /q \"%%f\" \""

Dont try these scripts unless ur damn sure what you are doign The above scripts deletes all folders named .svn and CVS in the folder inside which you call it . It will wipe off all versioning info, so better be carefull

4 Responsed To This Post

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Stefan Says, in 6-10-2007 at 12:30:28 from 194.208.64.49

With TortoiseSVN, you don’t really need that context menu because you already have one!
You can right-drag the working copy folder to another location, and then choose “SVN Export here…” from the context menu.
See here for more details about the right-drag handler in TortoiseSVN:
http://tortoisesvn.net/most-forgotten-feature

An ‘export’ creates a copy of the working copy without all the .svn folders, and I think that’s what you want/need in your situation.

varun krishnan Says, in 6-10-2007 at 13:20:20 from 122.164.57.54

@Stefan

Thanks for the tip buddy.

Works fine

Szymon Says, in 6-10-2007 at 14:31:31 from 83.238.116.6

.svn files are a pain even if you are using export. You have to perform so many actions just to upload your code changes.

Fortunately there are smart SVN hosting options like springloops that makes things much easier. Give it a try, maybe it will work for you.

The expert Says, in 6-10-2007 at 16:34:31 from 212.143.237.116

So stupid reason to blame svn,
for the completely not related things.

- you can use the FTP client that ignores hidden folders
(.svn are always hidden)
- you can use svn export as it is written above
- you can use a command line that does not copy .svn
- you can organize the web site as a working copy
and just call svn update on the web-server site.
There are lot of references on how to use svn as the web-site deployment tool.