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.

Appendix B. Subversion for CVS Users

Table of Contents

Revision Numbers Are Different Now
Directory Versions
More Disconnected Operations
Distinction Between Status and Update
Status
Update
Branches and Tags
Metadata Properties
Conflict Resolution
Binary Files and Translation
Versioned Modules
Authentication
Converting a Repository from CVS to Subversion

This appendix is a guide for CVS users new to Subversion. It's essentially a list of differences between the two systems as viewed from 10,000 feet. For each section, we provide references to relevant chapters when possible.

Although the goal of Subversion is to take over the current and future CVS user base, some new features and design changes were required to fix certain broken behaviors that CVS had. This means that, as a CVS user, you may need to break habits—ones that you forgot were odd to begin with.