quick_walkthrough.xml   [plain text]


<chapter id="misc-docs-quick_walkthrough">
  <title>Quick Walkthrough</title>

  <simplesect>

    <para>Here's an opportunity to play with Subversion in some
      hands-on examples.  The Subversion commands demoed here are just
      small examples of what Subversion can do; see Chapter 3 in
      the Subversion Book for full explanations of each.</para>

  </simplesect>

  <!-- ================================================================= -->
  <!-- ======================== SECTION 1 ============================== -->
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  <sect1 id="misc-docs-quick_walkthrough-sect-1">
    <title>Make a Repository</title>

    <para>The Subversion client has an abstract interface for
      accessing a repository.  Three <quote>Repository Access</quote>
      (RA) implementations currently exist as libraries.  You can see
      which methods are available to your svn client like so:</para>

      <screen>
$ svn --version
svn, version 1.0.4 (r9844)
   compiled May 23 2004, 14:04:22

Copyright (C) 2000-2004 CollabNet.
Subversion is open source software, see <systemitem class="url">http://subversion.tigris.org/</systemitem>
This product includes software developed by CollabNet (<systemitem class="url">http://www.Collab.Net/</systemitem>).

The following repository access (RA) modules are available:

* ra_dav : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV (DeltaV) protocol.
  - handles 'http' scheme
  - handles 'https' scheme
* ra_local : Module for accessing a repository on local disk.
  - handles 'file' scheme
* ra_svn : Module for accessing a repository using the svn network protocol.
  - handles 'svn' scheme
      </screen>

    <para>If you don't see ra_local, it probably means that Berkeley
      DB (or relevant database back-end) wasn't found when compiling
      your client binary.  To continue with these examples, you'll
      need to have ra_local available.</para>

    <para>Start by creating a new, empty repository using the
      <command>svnadmin</command> tool:</para>

    <screen>
$ svnadmin create myrepos
    </screen>

    <para>Let's assume you have a directory <filename>someproject</filename>
      which contains files that you wish to place under version
      control:</para>

    <screen>
someproject/foo
            bar
            baz/
            baz/gloo
            baz/bloo
    </screen>

    <para>Once the repository exists, you can initially import your
      data into it, using the ra_local access method (invoked by using
      a <quote>file</quote> URL):</para>

    <screen>
$ svn import someproject file:///absolute/path/to/myrepos/trunk/someproject
&hellip;
Committed revision 1.
    </screen>

    <para>The example above creates a new directory tree
      <filename>trunk/someproject</filename> in the root of the repository's
      filesystem, and copies all the data from
      <filename>someproject</filename> into it.</para>

    <sect2 id="misc-docs-quick_walkthrough-sect-1.1">
      <title>Make Some Working Copies</title>

      <para>Now check out a fresh <quote>working copy</quote> of your
        project.  To do this, we specify a URL to the exact directory
        within the repository that we want.  The parameter after the
        URL allows us to name the working copy we check out.</para>

      <screen>
$ svn checkout file:///absolute/path/to/myrepos/trunk/someproject wc
A  wc/foo
A  wc/bar
A  wc/baz
A  wc/baz/gloo
A  wc/baz/bloo
      </screen>

      <para>Now we have a working copy in a local directory called
        <filename>wc</filename>, which represents the location
        <filename>/trunk/someproject</filename> in the repository (assuming
        the repository's root is <systemitem
        class="url">file:///absolute/path/to/myrepos</systemitem>.)</para>

      <para>For the sake of example, let's duplicate the working copy,
        and pretend it belongs to someone else:</para>

      <screen>
$ cp -R wc wc2
      </screen>

      <para>From here, let's make some changes within our original
      working copy:</para>

      <screen>
$ cd wc
$ echo "new text" &gt;&gt; bar     # change bar's text
$ svn propset color green foo      # add a metadata property to foo
$ svn delete baz                   # schedule baz directory for deletion
$ touch newfile    
$ svn add newfile                  # schedule newfile for addition
</screen>

      <para>That's a lot of changes!  If we were to leave and come
        back tomorrow, how could we remember what changes we'd made?
        Easy.  The <command>status</command> command will show us all
        of the <quote>local modifications</quote> in our working
        copy:</para>

      <screen>
$ svn status                   # See what's locally modified
M   ./bar
_M  ./foo
A   ./newfile
D   ./baz
D   ./baz/gloo
D   ./baz/bloo
      </screen>

      <para>According to this output, three items are scheduled to be
        (D)eleted from the repository, one item is scheduled to be
        (A)dded to the repository, and two items have had their
        contents (M)odified in some way.  For more details, be sure to
        read about <command>svn status</command> in Chapter 3 of the
        Subversion Book.</para>

      <para>Now we decide to commit our changes, creating Revision 2
        in the repository:</para>

      <screen>
$ svn commit -m "fixed bug #233"
Sending    bar
Sending    foo
Adding     newfile
Deleting   baz
Transmitting data...
Committed revision 2.
      </screen>

      <para>The -m argument is a way of specifying a <firstterm>log
        message</firstterm>: that is, a specific description of your
        change-set sent to the repository.  The log message is now
        attached to Revision 2.  A future user might peruse repository
        log messages, and now will know what your Revision 2 changes
        were for.</para>

      <para>Finally, pretend that you are now Felix, or some other
        collaborator.  If you go <filename>wc2</filename> (that other working
        copy you made), it will need the <command>svn update</command>
        command to receive the Revision 2 changes:</para>

      <screen>
$ cd ../wc2                # change to the back-up working copy

$ svn update               # get changes from repository
U   ./bar
_U  ./foo
A   ./newfile
D   ./baz
      </screen>

      <para>The output of the <command>svn update</command> command
        tells Felix that baz was (D)eleted from his working copy,
        newfile was (A)dded to his working copy, and that bar and foo
        had their contents (U)pdated.</para>

      <para>If for some reason <filename>bar</filename> contained some local
        changes made by Felix, then the server changes would be
        <firstterm>merged</firstterm> into <filename>bar</filename>: that is,
        <filename>bar</filename> would now contain both sets of changes.
        Whenever server changes are merged into a locally-modified
        file, two possible things can happen:</para>

      <itemizedlist>

        <listitem>
          <para>The merge can go smoothly.  That is, the two sets of
            changes do not overlap.  In this case, <command>svn
            update</command> prints a <literal>G</literal>
            (``mer(G)ed'').</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>The sets of changes overlap, and a
            <literal>C</literal> for (C)onflict is printed.  See
            section ??? for information about how conflict resolution
            works.</para>
        </listitem>

      </itemizedlist>

    </sect2>

  </sect1>

</chapter>

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