svn diff basics

svn 1.1.1 stand-alone on Windows 2000.

I want to do something very simple -- compare the changes between a
file on branch X in the repository and the same file in my working copy
of branch Y. This is to see what changes will be made if I merge the
latest changes from branch X back into my WC of branch Y.

I cannot puzzle out the svn diff documentation, I think because the
terminology changes. Specifically, the term "TARGET" is used
repeatedly in the text but is not listed in the syntax, and so far my
inferences about what it means seem to have proved wrong :-(.

The repository is in h:/svnrepos/project, the other branch is "live",
my WC is of branch "dev". I am in the html subdir of branch dev
(d:\project\dev\html) and I try this command:

    svn diff -r HEAD h:/svnrepos/project/live/html/base.inc .

by which I meant "compare the head revision of the file base.inc in the
"live" branch in the repository to the local working copy which came
from the "dev" branch (which does exist, and is different -- I checked
with diff). I got:

    svn: Target lists to diff may not contain both working copy paths
    and URLs

This surprised me since the docs say:

--revision N

    The client compares TARGET@N against working copy.

If I leave out the ".":

    svn diff -r HEAD h:/svnrepos/project/live/html/base.inc

I get no output at all, whcih suggests no difference -- and they are
different.

What am I doing wrong??

Thanks,

--
Tom
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