This text is a work in progress—highly subject to change—and may not accurately describe any released version of the Apache™ Subversion® software. Bookmarking or otherwise referring others to this page is probably not such a smart idea. Please visit http://www.svnbook.com/ for stable versions of this book.

Help!
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Help!

It goes without saying that this book exists to be a source of information and assistance for Subversion users new and old. Conveniently, though, the Subversion command-line is self-documenting, alleviating the need to grab a book off the shelf (wooden, virtual, or otherwise). The svn help command is your gateway to that built-in documentation:

$ svn help
usage: svn <subcommand> [options] [args]
Subversion command-line client, version 1.8.13.
Type 'svn help <subcommand>' for help on a specific subcommand.
Type 'svn --version' to see the program version and RA modules
  or 'svn --version --quiet' to see just the version number.

Most subcommands take file and/or directory arguments, recursing
on the directories.  If no arguments are supplied to such a
command, it recurses on the current directory (inclusive) by default.

Available subcommands:
   add
   blame (praise, annotate, ann)
   cat
…

As described in the previous output, you can ask for help on a particular subcommand by running svn help SUBCOMMAND. Subversion will respond with the full usage message for that subcommand, including its syntax, options, and behavior:

$ svn help help
help (?, h): Describe the usage of this program or its subcommands.
usage: help [SUBCOMMAND...]

Global options:
  --username ARG           : specify a username ARG
  --password ARG           : specify a password ARG
…

Options and Switches and Flags, Oh My!

The Subversion command-line client has numerous command modifiers. Some folks refer to such things as “switches” or “flags”—in this book, we'll call them “options”. You'll find the options supported by a given svn subcommand, plus a set of options which are globally supported by all subcommands, listed near the bottom of the built-in usage message for that subcommand.

Subversion's options have two distinct forms: short options are a single hyphen followed by a single letter, and long options consist of two hyphens followed by several letters and hyphens (e.g., -s and --this-is-a-long-option, respectively). Every option has at least one long format. Some, such as the --changelist option, feature an abbreviated long-format alias (--cl, in this case). Only certain options—generally the most-used ones—have an additional short format. To maintain clarity in this book, we usually use the long form in code examples, but when describing options, if there's a short form, we'll provide the long form (to improve clarity) and the short form (to make it easier to remember). Use the form you're more comfortable with when executing your own Subversion commands.

Many Unix-based distributions of Subversion include manual pages of the sort that can be invoked using the man program, but those tend to carry only pointers to other sources of real help, such as the project's website and to the website which hosts this book. Also, several companies offer Subversion help and support, too, usually via a mixture of web-based discussion forums and fee-based consulting. And of course, the Internet holds a decade's worth of Subversion-related discussions just begging to be located by your favorite search engine. Subversion help is never too far away.

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