Reconcile relative external from Subversion

Question

Our Subversion repository has several subdirectories containing common files, as well as subdirectories for each project. Projects are configured with relative svn:externals properties to pull shared directories from the repository and configure them as subdirectories.

So, for example, our repository looks something like this:

  client
 shared
 portable
 app1
 app2

and app1 has svn:externals

  ../shared shared
 ../portable portable

so when checking portable and shared you can use app1 as subdirectories.

TortoiseSVN has an excellent function that makes a commit on app1 automatically detects externals subdirectories, realizes that they are all part of the same repository, and commit all its changes as part of the same commit. However, I cannot figure out how to get the same behavior from the command line client. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

It turns out this has a very simple solution, at least with Subversion 1.6.12: explicitly specify paths on the command line.

For example, if I run

 cd app1 svn ci file_in_repository.cpp shared portable 

then Subversion will pass app1 , shared and portable all within the same revision as I want it to. Apparently, the command line client will not process external files by default, but does not have problems processing one commit with them if they are explicitly specified.

Answer 2

This feature has not yet been implemented. The following is taken from SVN ver. 1.5 book :

Perhaps the most frustrating working copy created through the support of the externals definition is still disconnected from the main copy job (to whose versioned directories the svn: externals property was actually set). And Subversion still really only works on non-dissociating working copies. So, for example, if you want to make changes that you have made to one or more of these external working copies , you must run svn explicitly to transfer to working copies on the primary working copy there will be no external ones.

I also checked the SVN 1.6 release notes and only two improvements that were related to svn: externals. These are: file support in svn: externals and support for the usual shell citation rules in external definitions.

Perhaps this is not a function that should be implemented (and this is also my opinion). Typically, svn: externals are used to include relatively stable headers / files in any project / application that depends on them. They usually refer to tags or paths for specific changes. This is a big question with no particular answer that the svn client should make in this case.

Answer 3

To emphasize, the solution above - linking to each external project individually - only works if the external links are absolute.