[svn.haxx.se] · SVN Dev · SVN Users · SVN Org · TSVN Dev · TSVN Users · Subclipse Dev · Subclipse Users · this month's index

Re: Creating a working copy by copying .svn directories

From: Paul Koning <pkoning_at_equallogic.com>
Date: 2006-01-17 20:39:09 CET

>>>>> "Vincent" == Vincent Starre <vstarre@comcast.net> writes:

 Vincent> Paul Koning wrote:
 Glen> Hello, If one has 2 directory trees, identical except for the
 Glen> fact that one of them is a subversion working copy, can the one
 Glen> that is NOT a working copy be made into a working copy by
 Glen> copying the .svn directories from the one that is?
>> Yes, IF your directories are indeed truly identical. If they are
>> not, then bad things may happen.
>>
>> The safer solution is to create working directories the normal
>> way, via svn checkout.

 Vincent> "identical"? Hardly. Technically the .svn directories are
 Vincent> the /only/ things required of the working copies. Any
 Vincent> missing files can be restored from the text-base using the
 Vincent> "revert" command, any differing files will be detected in
 Vincent> the normal way. There really is no downside that I can think
 Vincent> of. Copying the .svn directories should be perfectly, 100%
 Vincent> safe. I'd love to know your reasoning for thinking there
 Vincent> would be any problem, though.

Good point. Yes, that should be correct.

What this translates to: the .svn files determine what Subversion
believes to be the checked-out files. If the files in the regular
directories don't match that, they will appear to be modified files.
If that wasn't actually the case, i.e., they were really unmodified
but you got the revision wrong, then you now have a mess.

So in the sense of "Subversion isn't confused" your working directory
is valid; in the sense of "is the user confused" you may well have a
problem Again, the easy way to avoid this is to create working
directories with the normal mechanism, not to attempt to construct
them out of bits that you hope go together as you intended.

    paul

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@subversion.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@subversion.tigris.org
Received on Tue Jan 17 23:17:51 2006

This is an archived mail posted to the Subversion Users mailing list.

This site is subject to the Apache Privacy Policy and the Apache Public Forum Archive Policy.