Checking out over top of an existing directory structure

One part of our project has a bunch of data that's not in source control.
Basically there's a system, with its own directory hierarchy, that already
exists; we are making modifications to the system and want SVN to just track
our changes. Since all of our changes are in new files, I don't want to
check the whole thing in - it's about 3 gig - just our modifications.

If I try to do a checkout on top of the existing system's structure, SVN
complains because some of the directories in the repository already exist in
the file system. So I have to do the checkout first, then install the system
on top of the working copy. I'd prefer to do this the other way round, since
a bunch of people already have the system installed and working. I couldn't
find this in the book anywhere. Anyone know how to tell SVN that it's ok
that some of the directories already exist?

Thanks!

-- Jim
Received on Tue Nov 16 20:26:11 2004