Quick info on Subversion / SVN

Wed Apr 22 13:19:20 EDT 2009

It's pretty much mandatory to use a version control system like
SVN; it will save you an enormous amount of grief once you're set up.

The SVN book is available for reading online and free download, and
although it's a bit long as an introduction, it is definitely worth
studying.

	http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn-book.html

If you just want to get started, this sequence worked once for me:

	svnadmin create your_repository
	svn import proj.dir file:///fullpath_to_your_,repository -m 'initial repository'
		# file:// is mandatory here but is an error on previous
	svn checkout file:///fullpath_to_your_repository any_proj.dir
		# e.g., /u/bwk/my_awk_repository
		# sometimes removes previous contents: back up first
	mkdir proj.dir
	cd proj.dir
	# create a bunch of files
	svn add whatever
		# to add files
	svn commit
		# to update your_repository


The SVN book talks about how a group can use SVN so that you don't trip over each
other and also about how to use an SVN server over a network connection.

The following suggestion from Jeff Bagdis '08 is the most compact and
easiest that I have seen thus far for network use.  If you have a
subversion repository on one of the public CS servers (e.g. bolle) in
the path /u/you/svn, created by typing

	$ svnadmin create /u/you/svn

you can checkout from this repository from anywhere by this:

	$ svn co svn+ssh://you@bolle.cs.princeton.edu/u/you/svn proj.dir

You need to specify the full path to the repository on the remote host.
It is said that this also works with OIT systems like hats, but not for
me so far.  Nor does it work on CS machines any more.  Bit rot seesm to
be universal.