In this tutorial, we will learn basic svn commands like svn commit, svn checkout, svn copy, svn merge, svn status, svn delete, svn merge, svn log etc that are extremely useful. And how these commands are used with proper example.

;

What is SVN?

SVN means subversion. SVN is free version control system built by Apache foundation. Subversion helps you maintaining versions of your codebase in common central repository. SVN also helps in simultaneous code development giving features like trunk, branches, tags etc.

;

Basic SVN Commands:

1. Create a Branch

svn copy trunk-url branch-url

This will create branch from the trunk url given to the branch url specified in the command in your repository

2. Check-out a branch

svn checkout branch-url </strong>or<strong> svn co branch-url

This will check out the branch at branch-url in present working directory from which command is invoked

Following operations need to be performed in a svn checked-out directory. Because these are svn directory specific operations.

3. Commit a file

svn commit file-name -m 'message'

This will commit the file in repository with given ‘message’

4. Check status of changed files

svn status or svn st

This will list of changed files in the local working directory than in repository

5. See who/what changes have been made in repository

svn log

This will list the changes made in the current branch with who has done changes and commit messages

6. See the diff

svn diff file-name

To see the difference in the current and repository file

7. Merge two branches

svn merge branch-abc -r119462:HEAD

This will merge branch-abc in the current branch i.e. working directory. r119462 is the revision number of branch-abc from which all changes are merged.

8. Delete a file

svn delete file-name

This will delete file from the local and post svn delete - you will have to commit the changes

These are the basic svn commands that are useful while using svn as version control system for any kind of development.

9. Browse Directory Structure of Repository

svn ls repository-url

This will list the directory at repository-url specified. It is similar to the ls command on your local.

10. Adding a file to Repository

svn add local-file-path

This will add (schedule) file to be committed in the SVN repository in current path.

Post adding file to Subversion, you will have to commit that file to SVN using svn commit command.

11. Updating local working copy

svn update or <strong>svn up

This command will update local working copy and show the status of newly added, deleted, modified or conflicted files.

Moreover, there are many svn commands available, if you need help regarding any of the command, you may try command -

svn help

which will list down all the available commands. Feel free to play with commands to master them.