Starters Guide

1. Checkout your working copy (checkout)

   $ svn co \
     https://svn.local/svn/test/trunk

2. Create your private branch (copy)

   $ svn cp \
     https://svn.local/svn/test/trunk \
     https://svn.local/svn/test/branches/private_vnaum
   

   Like any operation that changes repo, copy will require a commit message. Your $EDITOR will be spawned. Enter something meaningful (like "Creating private branch private_vnaum for testing")

3. Switch your WC to brand new private branch (switch)

   $ svn switch \
     https://svn.local/svn/test/branches/private_vnaum
   

4. Add a file (add)

   $ date > QQ
   $ svn add QQ
   A         QQ
   

5. Change some other file

   $ date >> ZZ
   

6. Examine working copy state (stat)

   $ svn stat
   A      QQ
   M      ZZ
   

   QQ - locally added, ZZ - locally modified.

7. Review your changes (diff)

   $ svn diff
   Index: QQ
   ===================================================================
   --- QQ  (revision 0)
   +++ QQ  (revision 0)
   @@ -0,0 +1 @@
   +Thu Jan  4 13:42:28 OMST 2007
   ...
   

8. Commit your changes (commit)

   $ svn commit
   

9. Change one more file

   $ date >> QQ
   

10. Review changes (diff)

    $ svn diff
    

11. Revert your changes (revert)

    $ svn revert -R .
    

12. Hard stuff: merging
    1. Find out changeset we're going to apply

       The easies way to do that is to switch to a donor branch and use svn log command. We will merge changes from our private branch - and our working copy already is on that branch.

       Looking at svn log:

       $ svn log --stop-on-copy
       ------------------------------------------------------------------------
       r7 | vnaum | 2007-01-04 14:13:19 +0600 (Thu, 04 Jan 2007) | 2 lines
       
       test edits
       
       ------------------------------------------------------------------------
       r6 | vnaum | 2007-01-04 12:59:31 +0600 (Thu, 04 Jan 2007) | 1 line
       
       Creating private branch
       ------------------------------------------------------------------------
       

       --stop-on-copy will stop log after copy command (branch creation).

       So, we see our changes were from r6 to r7 (r6:7) on branch https://svn.local/svn/test/branches/private_vnaum (If you forgot what is your current branch - check svn info)

    2. Create recipient branch:

       $ svn cp \
         https://svn.local/svn/test/trunk \
         https://svn.local/svn/test/branches/private_vnaum_merge_target
       

       (There were no changes on trunk).

    3. Switch to recipient branch

       $ svn switch \
         https://svn.local/svn/test/branches/private_vnaum_merge_target
       D  QQ
       U  ZZ
       Updated to revision 10.
       

       Forgot your branch name? svn list can list any directory in repository:

       $ svn list https://svn.local/svn/test/branches
       private_vnaum/
       private_vnaum_merge_target/
       

    4. Apply changeset:

       To do this we need two things: donor branch name (private_vnaum) and changeset revisions. Changeset is applied to working copy.

       $ svn merge \
         -r 6:7 \
         https://svn.local/svn/test/branches/private_vnaum
       A  QQ
       U  ZZ
       

       New file added, old file changed.

    5. Commit your changes:

       $ svn commit \
         -m "Merged changeset 6:7 from private_vnaum (test changes)" 

       Commit message must contain changeset description (what revisions and from which branch were merged)!

       It is a good idea to put a summary of changes (will save a lot of time someday).