Subversion
MediaWiki's SVN uses SSH public key so you don't need a password, so you'll need to supply your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to the person setting up your commit access (if that files doesn't exist, run ssh-keygen from non-root shell using blank passwd when prompted, see this link for details). Also, you need to set up your auto-props. Note also that the commit's are automatically shown on the #mediawiki IRC channel (see freenode FAQ re registering a nickname etc) so it's good to have that open when working on the MediaWiki code.
The WikiMedia repository
See MW:Subversion for details about using MediaWikis SVN. Here's some examples showing retrieval of the current version of the code-base, the current version of an extension, and a version of an extension for MediaWiki 1.16 respectively.
svn co http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/phase3
svn co http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/TreeAndMenu
svn co http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/branches/REL1_16/extensions/TreeAndMenu
Usage
The most important command to know is how to get help;
svn help
svn help checkout # Help on check(ing)out project to CLIENT copy
svn help commmit # Help on commit(ting) changes to SERVER
To obtain a log of the changes made in a svn project;
svn log -v http://[PATH TO SERVER SVN PROJECT]
Or to get changes between a certain date range in a local repo;
svn log -r {2012-02-10}:{2012-02-15}
To create a new repository on the server ready for importing a directory of files;
cd /tmp
mkdir SERVER
svnadmin create /tmp/SERVER/newrepos
This creates a concise database directory for the new repository on the SERVER in the directory called /tmp/SERVER;
ls -l /tmp/SERVER/newrepos
total 16
-rw-r--r-- 1 User wheel 379 Apr 3 13:58 README.txt
drwxr-xr-x 4 User wheel 136 Apr 3 13:58 conf
drwxr-xr-x 2 User wheel 68 Apr 3 13:58 dav
drwxr-xr-x 10 User wheel 340 Apr 3 13:58 db
-r--r--r-- 1 User wheel 2 Apr 3 13:58 format
drwxr-xr-x 11 User wheel 374 Apr 3 13:58 hooks
drwxr-xr-x 4 User wheel 136 Apr 3 13:58 locks
Create an example directory for upload;
cd /tmp
mkdir MYTREE
echo '#!/usr/bin/perl -w\nprint "hello world";' > /tmp/MYTREE/helloWorld.pl
svn import /tmp/MYTREE file:///tmp/SERVER/newrepos/some/project
Listing the contents in the repository directory path;
svn list file:///tmp/SERVER/newrepos/some/project
To make a local copy you need to use the checkout command. This creates a new directory (default called newrepos) which is a local copy of newrepos.
mkdir CLIENT
cd CLIENT
svn co file:///tmp/SERVER/newrepos/some/project/ # fetches project/test.pl
svn co file:///tmp/SERVER/newrepos/some/ # fetches some/project/test.pl
rm -rf /tmp/CLIENT
svn co file:///tmp/SERVER/newrepos/some/project/ /tmp/CLIENT # Creates CLIENT dir
Note: The directory the svn command is run in determines where the local checkout directories and files will end up.
Now that you have created a local copy all work should be conducted within it. There is a hidden directory called .svn which contains all the information required for the svn framework;
cd /tmp/CLIENT # Work in the local copy of svn
To update a file on your CLIENT directory;
cd /tmp/CLIENT
svn update # "." is updated
cd /tmp
svn update /tmp/CLIENT # Specifying path
To add a new file to the local svn copy, first make a new file within the directory structure;
cd /tmp/CLIENT
echo '#!/usr/bin/perl -w\nprint qq(hello world!);' > /tmp/CLIENT/helloWorld2.pl
svn add helloWorld2.pl
The status command will identify differences between the CLIENT copy and the SERVER copy of the repoistory;
svn status /tmp/CLIENT
The following list provides the details of svn status output;
L abc.c # svn has a lock in its .svn directory for abc.c
M bar.c # the content in bar.c has local modifications
M baz.c # baz.c has property but no content modifications
X 3rd_party # this dir is part of an externals definition
? foo.o # svn doesn't manage foo.o
! some_dir # svn manages this, but it's either missing or incomplete
~ qux # versioned as file/dir/link, but type has changed
I .screenrc # svn doesn't manage this, and is configured to ignore it
A + moved_dir # added with history of where it came from
M + moved_dir/README # added with history and has local modifications
D stuff/fish.c # this file is scheduled for deletion
A stuff/loot/bloo.h # this file is scheduled for addition
C stuff/loot/lump.c # this file has conflicts from an update
R xyz.c # this file is scheduled for replacement
S stuff/squawk # this file or dir has been switched to a branch
Problems
When attempting to import the /var/www structure into the /var/svn/www repository it bailed after coming across a filename containing special characters with the following fatal error:
svn: Can't convert string from native encoding to 'UTF-8':
svn: A?\195?\164o?\195?\188.gif
SVN GUI's
- WebSVN
- Linux: kdesvn - and many others
- Windows: tortoisesvn
- Macos: svnx
See also
- Configure SVN - our procedure for setting up SVN and WebSVN on our servers
- MediaWiki SVN Statistics
- Subversion cheatsheet
- Subversion book
- CodeSwarm - renders video's of subversion repository activity
- Changing the username of a revision