svn --switch weirdness

[Auke Kok]

Carol Spears wrote:

>On Sat, Oct 29, 2005 at 06:56:39PM -0700, Auke Kok wrote:
>  
>
>>>i (guess) that i successfully made the switch from the old anon server
>>>to the new one.  in the middle of my first "update" i started getting a
>>>new module, xfc/
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>This suggests that you are checking out the *entire* xfce svn tree. Are 
>>you aware that this creates over 3.5gb of traffic (at least) and hardly 
>>useful unless you are a developer?
>>
>>    
>>
>it is interesting that after a switch, a request to "update" would cause
>a "checkout" instead.  it actually stopped and refused to update
>xfce4-terminal.  it is my first time using svn.  just from the words i
>typed i would have expected different behavior.  my apologies if it
>caused any problem.  some of the behavior i expected was from what svn
>help update said.  it was researched confusion.
>
>  
>
>>again, I think that you are trying to checkout the entire svn 
>>repository. This is different with CVS since *everything* is underneath 
>>the /svn/xfce, including ALL tags and branches ever made. Hardly 
>>usefull, you should really only checkout the /trunk/ parts.
>>
>>Also, doing an svn update on the ENTIRE svn trunk makes your local svn 
>>traverse the ENTIRE xfce repository, which is huge, like I stated before 
>>- and takes forever too, especially the first checkout/update.
>>
>>in short: don't do this!
>>
>>    
>>
>a simple --switch and an update.  curious that it could cause such
>problems.  i will look closer to find the difference between update and
>checkout -- i really did only want to update the things i had already.
>
>  
>
>>if you want all the /trunk/ parts (only 200-300mb) then svn co the 
>>/svn/xfce/modules/trunk parts, or hand-select the trunks that you need. 
>>This will save considerable time and trouble for the both of us ;^)
>>
>>    
>>
>svn really did not want to make the --switch when i put the same last
>directories on the TO path that were on the FROM path.  the email about
>how to do this made it sound to simple to screw up that much.
>

no problem as long as you're not doing it on purpose! Switching to 
subversion can be tricky and there are some things that require 
adjustment. Reading the basic manuals of subversion never revealed that 
information to me - I had to learn it all by making mistakes too ;^)


I guess the catch is that subversion updates *everything* in the current 
directory if you do an svn _up_, including _new_ trees beneath it. If 
you have a working copy of the repository (e.g.) xfce4/xfwm4/trunk and 
you do an svn up inside 'xfce4'... you will get ALL of xfce4.

Most likely you are better off separately checking out all /trunk/ parts 
into a directory which is not part of any svn repo. This is exactly what 
kelnos' svn build script does, for instance, and that is a good place to 
start.

Also the /modules/trunk/ is another good place to start - it "inserts" 
parts of the svn repository and will never traverse outside of whatever 
is defined in the /modules/trunk/.

hth,

Auke