teh bigbro blog(tm)
Bigbro's foray into the scary world of blogging

Wed, 06 Feb 2008

I've recently started moving years worth of material from CVS version control to Subversion (svn). I very much like the idea that I can set up and share a repository securely over SSH, using svn+ssh:// type URLs. I also really like the idea that it keeps track of local changesets - ideal for someone like myself who tends to work on a laptop on trains and buses, away from useful internet connectivity. Until recently though, I hadn't stumbled upon two commands that are incredibly useful to me, for comparing a local checkout against what's last been committed on the server.

svn status [filename]

This gives the status of a local checked out file, as against when it was originally checked out to that local machine. No connection to the SVN server required.

svn status -u [filename]

This compares the status of a local checked out file, as against the currently committed version in the repository. svn status -uv gives more information on committed revision numbers. This requires a connection to the SVN server.

svn diff [filename]

This compares the local files against the revision at which they were locally checked out. No connection to the SVN server is required. While this is useful while working locally, I often want to diff files against the latest version in the respository - particularly when I know someone else might be editing and committing the same file ... or more likely it's me editing and committing the same file from a different computer.

svn diff -r COMMITTED [filename]

svn diff -r HEAD [filename]

This compares the local files against the last committed version / the head node in the respository. It requires a connection to the SVN server.

copyright © 2005-2008, Gareth Eason