Late to the Party: SVN and SVK

SVN and SVK

chris.a.williams@gmail.com (Chris) — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:38:00 +0000

Dear Lazyweb:

I would like to take an existing SVN repository of a project (like say, Typo), check out a tagged version, create local modifications and save the modified version in a local/home SVN repository(my blog). Later, I'd like to sync up the local version to a new tagged version of the original repository (Typo), handle any merges locally and then check in the result into my local repository again. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.

Is SVK the right job for this? Has anybody done something like this? Essentially its the equivalent of creating a branch on a SVN repository but having that branch in an entirely separate SVN repository instance. I don't have experience with this, so I'd greatly appreciate any pointers anybody out there might have.

"SVN and SVK" by Marcus Ahnve

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:17:55 +0000

That exact question caused me to dive into the world of distributed version control. Look into bazaar-ng, darcs, monotone or my favorite: mercurial.

"SVN and SVK" by Tom

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:15:02 +0000

I used SVK until recently, and it can do what you want. Here's the steps:

1. 'mirror' the source SVN to your SVK repository
2. Take a working copy of the tree
3. Create a 'mirror' of your production SVN

Make changes to your working copy and, when you want, run an 'smerge' to either of the mirrors. When you merge into the mirror, the remote SVN is updated too.

Now the problems: SVK can get confused. I got myself into places where the upload to the remote SVN would break, and I could never recover - SVN properties seemed to cause problems.

SVK doesn't do svn:externals. I worked with this by mirroring every plugin and Rails, and using SVK copy to put a particular version into my working copy.

I no longer use SVK. When it goes wrong, I could find no way to get back on track (other than start from scratch!)

"SVN and SVK" by Ryan Daigle

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:47:54 +0000

Sounds like you're talking about Piston?

"SVN and SVK" by Chris McGrath

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:49:49 +0000

I wrote an article on how I used svk for something like this with mephisto. http://octopod.info/2006/8/19/managing-multiple-local-mephisto-repos-with-svk

"SVN and SVK" by Mirko

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:08:26 +0000

Yes, I believe you could do that with SVK. I once worked through a tutorial from here http://scottstuff.net/blog/articles/2005/07/07/distributed-development-with-svk (seems to be unavailable at the moment) but haven't really used it regularly.