I’ve done a few articles in the past on different tasks in svn and git, but I have a little cheat sheet of sorts I’ve been using for awhile for Subversion on Mac OS X and thought I would share it. Before you get started, check your version. I use 2.0 but I seem to remember all of these are about the same as they were previously:
svn --version
To get started, Subversion uses a repository to store projects. Each client needs a repository and these should be on direct attached drives. The repository hosts a Berkeley database a folder per project you check out, or import. To create a repository in a folder called Repository that lives in your home folder, you can use the following command, which uses the svnadmin command (svnadmin is used for most admin tasks in Subversion and the svn command itself is used for most user operations) and then the create verb, followed by a path:
svnadmin create ~/Repository
Note: These commands are mostly the same in Windows, except you use a drive letter rather than a fully qualified path. They are identical in Linux.
Within the Repository directory, each project will have a folder. Within these, you would then create folders for branches, tags and trunk, where trunk is the directories and files you will be working with. Then, we’ll import our first project. To do so we’re going to use the svn command, along with the import verb and then in the second position, we’ll use project to define the type of import. Next, we’ll define the location. The location could be http:// or file:///. In this case we’ll use an existing, mounted AFP file system at /Volumes/myserver/sharedrepo/projectname. Next, we’ll just put a message in there using the -m option, indicating “Initial Import”:
svn import project file:///Volumes/myserver/sharedrepo/projectname -m "First Import"
That wasn’t so bad. To see a list of the projects stored in a repository, use the svn command along with the list verb. When I do this, I like to use the –verbose option (optional, thus an option). YOu would also provide the path to the repository:
svn list --verbose file:///Users/cedge/Repository
To update the repository:
svn update
We now have a local copy of the project we imported earlier (creatively called projectname) and can work on it. Before we start working on it though, we want to check it out. To do so, we’ll use the svn command, along with the checkout verb. We’ll then provide the path to the project and name of the project:
svn checkout file:///Users/cedge/Repository/projectname/trunk projectname
When you’re done working on things, let’s look at what’s changed using svn’s status verb (btw, a writing point, by making svn possessive there, did I give it a personality? If so, then it’s certainly cranky at times so I suppose that’s fine):
svn status
You’ll invariably want to add things to a project, which uses the oddly named add verb (bad grammar pun, sry):
svn add filename
Removing files is a similar process:
svn delete filename
Adding, deleting and changes all need to be committed once you’re done working on the project. To commit changes, use the commit verb. Here, we’re going to provide a message explaining what we did (Added a method for handling invalid file names and bad grammar puns) and then the path:
svn commit -m "Added a method for handling invalid file names and bad grammar puns" file:///Users/cedge/Repository/projectname/trunk
I didn’t include tagging, getting releases (list verb), using preshared keys (ssh-keygen, ssh-copy-id, ssh-agent, ssh-add), resolving conflicts (resolved verb), so feel free to add comments with your examples if others read this and would like to add more!
