This documentation was written to describe the 1.6.x series of Subversion. If you are running a different version of Subversion, you are strongly encouraged to visit http://www.svnbook.com/ and instead consult the version of this documentation appropriate for your version of Subversion.
svn checkout (co) — Check out a working copy from a repository.
Check out a working copy from a repository. If
PATH is omitted, the
basename of the URL will be used as the destination.
If multiple URLs are given, each will be checked out into a
subdirectory of PATH, with the
name of the subdirectory being the basename of the
URL.
Check out a working copy into a directory called
mine:
$ svn checkout file:///var/svn/repos/test mine A mine/a A mine/b A mine/c A mine/d Checked out revision 20. $ ls mine $
Check out two different directories into two separate working copies:
$ svn checkout file:///var/svn/repos/test \
file:///var/svn/repos/quiz
A test/a
A test/b
A test/c
A test/d
Checked out revision 20.
A quiz/l
A quiz/m
Checked out revision 13.
$ ls
quiz test
$
Check out two different directories into two separate
working copies, but place both into a directory called
working-copies:
$ svn checkout file:///var/svn/repos/test \
file:///var/svn/repos/quiz \
working-copies
A working-copies/test/a
A working-copies/test/b
A working-copies/test/c
A working-copies/test/d
Checked out revision 20.
A working-copies/quiz/l
A working-copies/quiz/m
Checked out revision 13.
$ ls
working-copies
If you interrupt a checkout (or something else interrupts your checkout, such as loss of connectivity, etc.), you can restart it either by issuing the identical checkout command again or by updating the incomplete working copy:
$ svn checkout file:///var/svn/repos/test mine A mine/a A mine/b ^C svn: The operation was interrupted svn: caught SIGINT $ svn checkout file:///var/svn/repos/test mine A mine/c ^C svn: The operation was interrupted svn: caught SIGINT $ svn update mine A mine/d Updated to revision 20. $
If you wish to check out some revision other than the
most recent one, you can do so by providing the
--revision (-r) option
to the svn checkout command:
$ svn checkout -r 2 file:///var/svn/repos/test mine A mine/a Checked out revision 2. $
Subversion will complain by default if you try to
check out a directory atop an existing directory which
contains files or subdirectories that the checkout itself
would have created. Use the --force
option to override this safeguard. When you check out
with the --force option, any unversioned
file in the checkout target tree which ordinarily would
obstruct the checkout will still become versioned, but
Subversion will preserve its contents as-is. If those
contents differ from the repository file at that path
(which was downloaded as part of the checkout), the file
will appear to have local modifications—the changes
required to transform the versioned file you checked out
into the unversioned file you had before checking
out—when the checkout completes.
$ mkdir project $ mkdir project/lib $ touch project/lib/file.c $ svn checkout file:///var/svn/repos/project/trunk project svn: Failed to add directory 'project/lib': an unversioned directory of the sa me name already exists $ svn checkout file:///var/svn/repos/project/trunk project --force E project/lib A project/lib/subdir E project/lib/file.c A project/lib/anotherfile.c A project/include/header.h Checked out revision 21. $ svn status wc M project/lib/file.c $ svn diff wc Index: project/lib/file.c =================================================================== --- project/lib/file.c (revision 1) +++ project/lib/file.c (working copy) @@ -3 +0,0 @@ -/* file.c: Code for acting file-ishly. */ -#include <stdio.h> -/* Not feeling particularly creative today. */ $
As in another other working copy, you have the choices typically available: reverting some or all of those local “modifications”, committing them, or continuing to modify your working copy.
This feature is especially useful for performing
in-place imports of unversioned directory trees. By first
importing the tree into the repository, and then checking
out new repository location atop the unversioned tree with
the --force option, you effectively
transform the unversioned tree into a working
copy.
$ svn mkdir -m "Create newproject project root." \
file://var/svn/repos/newproject
$ svn import -m "Import initial newproject codebase." newproject \
file://var/svn/repos/newproject/trunk
Adding newproject/include
Adding newproject/include/newproject.h
Adding newproject/lib
Adding newproject/lib/helpers.c
Adding newproject/lib/base.c
Adding newproject/notes
Adding newproject/notes/README
Committed revision 22.
$ svn checkout file://`pwd`/repos-1.6/newproject/trunk newproject --force
E newproject/include
E newproject/include/newproject.h
E newproject/lib
E newproject/lib/helpers.c
E newproject/lib/base.c
E newproject/notes
E newproject/notes/README
Checked out revision 2.
$ svn status newproject
$