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.

svn cat
Prev  svn Reference—Subversion Command-Line Client  Next

Name

svn cat — Output the contents of the specified files or URLs.

Synopsis

svn cat TARGET[@REV]...

Description

Output the contents of the specified files or URLs. For listing the contents of directories, see svn list later in this chapter.

Options

--revision (-r) REV

Examples

If you want to view readme.txt in your repository without checking it out:

$ svn cat http://svn.red-bean.com/repos/test/readme.txt
This is a README file.
Don't bother reading it.  The boss is a knucklehead.
 
INSTRUCTIONS
============

Step 1:  Do this.

Step 2:  Do that.
$

You can view specific versions of files, too.

$ svn cat -r 3 http://svn.red-bean.com/repos/test/readme.txt
This is a README file.
 
INSTRUCTIONS
============

Step 1:  Do this.

Step 2:  Do that.
$
[Note] Note

You might develop a reflex action of using svn cat to view your working file contents. But keep in mind that the default peg revision for svn cat when used on a working copy file target is BASE, the unmodified base revision of that file. Don't be surprised when a simple svn cat /path/to/file invocation fails to display your local modifications to that file!
[Tip] Tip

If your working copy is out of date (or you have local modifications) and you want to see the HEAD revision of a file in your working copy, use the --revision (-r) option: svn cat -r HEAD FILENAME
Prev  Up  Next
svn blame (praise, annotate, ann)  Home  svn changelist (cl)