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Version Control For Non Progrmmers With Subversion

An article on the use of Subversion and TortiseSVN as a means of maintaining document history for non-programmers.

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Keith Fieldhouse
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
25 views

Version Control For Non Progrmmers With Subversion

An article on the use of Subversion and TortiseSVN as a means of maintaining document history for non-programmers.

Uploaded by

Keith Fieldhouse
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Version Control For Non-

Programmers With Subversion


By: Keith Fieldhouse

Imagine a utility that lets you make an annotated backup of any of your project
files with the click of a mouse or a single command. It would let you review the
history of your backups and recover any version you wished. And it would
integrate with your file browser and would keep track of files that have changed
since your last backup. The utility exists — Subversion, and its companion
program TortoiseSVN, can help you safely manage your files as you work with
them.

Subversion is one of a class of programs that has been used by programmers


for decades: the source code control system, which developers use to manage
changes to program source code. Such software has features that enable large
teams to work in a distributed environment on the same files while keeping
track of who has done what, and when. But even if you work by yourself on
spreadsheets and word processing documents, you can harness the power of
Subversion to eliminate the need to litter your directories with files like
“forcast.xlsOLD” and “Presentation.docFirstDraft.”

To get started with Subversion you’ll need to download the latest version from
the Subversion Web site. If you’re using a Linux system, you should install
Subversion from the program repository for your distribution (using apt, yum,
or up2date). For Microsoft Windows users, the Subversion team has made a
Windows-style installer.

If you are using a Windows system, you should install TortoiseSVN as well.
TortoiseSVN allows you to execute Subversion commands directly from the
Windows Explorer file manager by adding a set of right-click context menus to
your files and folders.

Once you’ve installed Subversion and TortoiseSVN on your system, you’ll need
to set up a Subversion repository where the program can keep the copies of the
documents that you’ve “checked in” to its database. Subversion saves only the
differences between versions of files that you’re storing in its repository, saving
space in comparison with keeping multiple copies of the files. Subversion can
always recreate any revision of a file.

To create a repository, at a command prompt issue the following command:


svnadmin create --fs-type=fsfs/data/SvnRepository

The directory you specify should be an existing empty directory.

Alternatively, using TortoiseSVN, right-click on an empty directory (we’ll assume


C:SvnRepository). Select the “TortoiseSVN->Create Repository Here…” menu
item. You’ll be prompted to select a repository type. As with the command-line
example, choose fsfs.

We’ll assume that you intend to keep all of your Subversion-controlled


documents in a single directory called ProjectDocs. If you’d like to set up more
directories to work with Subversion, repeat the setup steps below for each
directory in question.

Before Subversion can manage your documents, you must import them into the
Subversion repository. To do so, change directory to your ProjectDocs directory.
Make sure the directory (and its children) contain only the files you wish to
store in the Subversion repository. Issue the following command:

svn import . file:///data/SvnRepository/ProjectDocs

You’ll note that we’ve used a file:// URL to specify a location within the
SvnRepository that we created earlier. When you issue this command, you’ll be
placed in an editor in which you can enter a description of this directory. When
you save and exit the editor buffer, all of the files (and subdirectories) in your
ProjectDocs directory will be copied into your Subversion repository.

The process with TortoiseSVN is about as simple. Right-click on your


ProjectDocs directory and select “TortoiseSVN->Import…”. In the resulting
dialog, you can browse to the Subversion repository you created and add to the
URL the directory within the repository you want to import into. In our example,
the URL to import to will be file:///C:/SvnRepository/ProjectDocs. As with the
command line, you’ll be given an opportunity to describe the change you’ve
made.

When you import a directory into Subversion, it is not converted into what is
called a working directory — that is, a directory that’s connected to the
Subversion repository and allows you to commit revisions or changes to your
documents to the repository. To create a working copy of your ProjectDocs
directory, first rename the one you just imported to something like
ProjectDocs.presvn. Then issue the following command to check out your
working copy:

svn co file:///data/SvnRepository/ProjectDocs ProjectDocs

When you issue this command, Subversion will create a new “working copy” of
your ProjectDocs directory. After you’ve verified that it’s complete and correct,
you can delete the one that you’d moved out of the way.

To create a working copy with TortoiseSVN, right-click in the directory in which


you want to create your working copy and select “Check Out…”. You’ll need to
use the same URL that you used to import the directory (it should be in the
drop-down list).

Now any time you make changes to one of the files in your ProjectDocs
directory you can “commit” them to the Subversion repository by issuing the
command svn commit while in the directory. With TortoiseSVN, right-click on
the file or directory you wish to commit and select “Commit…”. When you issue
the command, Subversion will scan the files in the directory and copy all of the
changes you’ve made to the repository. As with the import command, you’ll be
given the opportunity add a comment describing the changes you’ve made. If
you want to commit only a particular file, you can pass the name of the file as
an argument to the commit command.

Now that you’ve set up your ProjectDocs directory you can work with your
documents as usual. Whenever you reach a point that you’d like to preserve,
simply commit the file or the directory. In the future, if you create a new file in
your ProjectDocs directory (say NewFile.doc) issue the command svn add
NewFile.doc. After that, you can commit the file as usual. TortoiseSVN provides
a “TortoiseSVN->Add” context menu for the same purpose.

Whenever you commit anything to your repository, Subversion increments a


revision number. You refer to previous versions of your files by this revision
number. To see the revisions of a particular file (say MyDoc.doc) execute the
command:

svn log MyDoc.doc

This will show you the revisions of your file and the descriptions you entered
when you committed the changes. To get an older revision (say 6) of your file,
make sure you’ve committed any changes to the file. Then issue the command:
svn update -r 6 MyDoc.doc

Your current copy of the file will be replaced with the file from back at revision 6
of your repository. When you want the current version back, just issue the
update command without the -r option. TortoiseSVN has “Show log…”, “Update
to revision…”, and “Update…” context menu items that let you accomplish the
same things.

Those are the basics of working with Subversion as a private data management
utility. Obviously software that’s designed to work with hundreds of files and
developers at a time has significantly more features and capabilities. If you’d
like to learn more about how Subversion works, the excellent Subversion
Book is the place to start.

Day-to-day use of Subversion is easy. Just commit your files whenever you’ve
reached a point that’s worth saving and describe the changes that you’re
committing. It’s remarkably liberating to be able to attempt significant changes
to a document when you know that it’s a simple matter to recover a previous
version with a single command or click of the mouse.

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