Just found this great shortcut in subversion (introduced in 1.6):
Instead of typing the whole path to your repository root, you can simply use a caret (^). This is especially useful when switching to a branch
svn switch ^/branches/new
or merging the trunk
svn merge ^/trunk
Before that I always did svn info, copied the path, etc. etc.
Once in a while it happens that you have to roll back some changes you made in a branch that was already signed off, reintegrated into the trunk and deleted. This is how it can be achieved:
1. resurrect your branch by copying the revision you want to roll back (here: 28120) to a new branch:
svn copy http://svn.domain.com/branches/new_feature@28120 http://svn.domain.com/branches/new_feature -m “restore temporarily”
2. in your local copy, undo the specific change (c -28120 is the same as -r 28120:28119):
svn merge -c -28120 http://svn.domain.com/branches/new_feature
3. the usual: build, test, commit. >> more…
Wondering why some svn commands I read in this book won’t work on my mac, I found out that I still have version 1.4.4 installed.
Wanting to get a newer version, I read an instruction saying “you’ll need MacPorts and therefore first install XCode and then…” – but I was pretty sure that wasn’t the best way. Having to install two programms just to get the newest subversion? However, as I’m still rather new to this “prorgamming on a mac” thing, I needed a little help from a friend to figure out an easier way:
1. download the binaries at http://www.open.collab.net/downloads/community/
2. doubleclick, install
3. add /opt/subversion/ to the path (do something like echo ‘export PATH=/opt/subversion/bin:$PATH’ >>./bash_profile in the Terminal) >> more…
If you ever want to resurrect files that you somehow deleted (like we did last week…) from Subversion – this is how it works:
1. Find the latest revision where the files (here: my_lost_folder) still existed (for example, 409)
2. Do
svn copy http://repository.com/branches/old/lost_folder@409 ./lost_folder
The files are not only brought back to live, but also automatically added to Subversion again.
Good thing I read the SVN book yesterday 
While looking up some svn commands, I recently stumbled upon this free book. After skimming over it one cloudy Sunday afternoon, I’d say it’s a really nice introduction. I especially recommend it to Subversion users who didn’t consider it necessary to read any documentations on Subversion – just like me. After reading the book I gained a lot of confidence using SVN, not being afraid to break something any more.
The book was written by members of the Subversion development team and focusses on the command line usage of SVN on unix. It’s style is enjoably matter-of-factly, but never boring. >> more…
