Branching in SVN

Using Branches in SVN

http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/ch04s02.html

There are two different ways to make a copy. We'll demonstrate the messy way first, just to make the concept clear. To begin, check out a working copy of the project's root directory, /calc:

$ svn checkout http://svn.example.com/repos/calc bigwc
A  bigwc/trunk/
A  bigwc/trunk/Makefile
A  bigwc/trunk/integer.c
A  bigwc/trunk/button.c
A  bigwc/branches/
Checked out revision 340.

Making a copy is now simply a matter of passing two working-copy paths to the svn copy command:

$ cd bigwc
$ svn copy trunk branches/my-calc-branch
$ svn status
A  +   branches/my-calc-branch

In this case, the svn copy command recursively copies the trunk working directory to a new working directory, branches/my-calc-branch. As you can see from the svn status command, the new directory is now scheduled for addition to the repository. But also notice the “+” sign next to the letter A. This indicates that the scheduled addition is a copy of something, not something new. When you commit your changes, Subversion will create /calc/branches/my-calc-branch in the repository by copying /calc/trunk, rather than resending all of the working copy data over the network:

$ svn commit -m "Creating a private branch of /calc/trunk."
Adding         branches/my-calc-branch
Committed revision 341.

And now the easier method of creating a branch, which we should have told you about in the first place: svn copy is able to operate directly on two URLs.

$ svn copy http://svn.example.com/repos/calc/trunk \
  http://svn.example.com/repos/calc/branches/my-calc-branch \
-m "Creating a private branch of /calc/trunk."

Committed revision 341.

There's really no difference between these two methods. Both procedures create a new directory in revision 341, and the new directory is a copy of /calc/trunk. This is shown in Figure 4.3, “Repository with new copy”. Notice that the second method, however, performs an immediate commit. ^[7] It's an easier procedure, because it doesn't require you to check out a large mirror of the repository. In fact, this technique doesn't even require you to have a working copy at all.

Here is what you can do to install subversion:

1. Install SVN Team Provider from

http://download.eclipse.org/technology/subversive/0.7/update-site/

2. After installing SVN Team Provider and restarting Eclipse, I installed SVN
connectors from

http://www.polarion.org/projects/subversive/download/eclipse/2.0/update-site/