Version Control with Subversion - Basic Work Cycle - Make Changes to Your Working Copy

Now you can get to work and make changes in your working copy. It's usually most convenient to decide on a particular change (or set of changes) to make, such as writing a new feature, fixing a bug, etc. The Subversion commands that you will use here are svn add , svn delete , svn copy , and svn move . However, if you are merely editing files that are already in Subversion, you may not need to use any of these commands until you commit. Changes you can make to your working copy:

File changes: This is the simplest sort of change. You don't need to tell Subversion that you intend to change a file; just make your changes. Subversion will be able to automatically detect which files have been changed.
Tree changes: You can ask Subversion to “mark” files and directories for scheduled removal, addition, copying, or moving. While these changes may take place immediately in your working copy, no additions or removals will happen in the repository until you commit them.

To make file changes, use your text editor, word processor, graphics program, or whatever tool you would normally use. Subversion handles binary files just as easily as it handles text files—and just as efficiently too.

Here is an overview of the four Subversion subcommands that you'll use most often to make tree changes (we'll cover svn import and svn mkdir later).

svn add foo: Schedule file, directory, or symbolic link foo to be added to the repository. When you next commit, foo will become a child of its parent directory. Note that if foo is a directory, everything underneath foo will be scheduled for addition. If you only want to add foo itself, pass the --non-recursive (-N) switch.
svn delete foo: Schedule file, directory, or symbolic link foo to be deleted from the repository. If foo is a file or link, it is immediately deleted from your working copy. If foo is a directory, it is not deleted, but Subversion schedules it for deletion. When you commit your changes, foo will be removed from your working copy and the repository. ^[3]
svn copy foo bar: Create a new item bar as a duplicate of foo. bar is automatically scheduled for addition. When bar is added to the repository on the next commit, its copy history is recorded (as having originally come from foo). svn copy does not create intermediate directories.
svn move foo bar: This command is exactly the same as running svn copy foo bar; svn delete foo . That is, bar is scheduled for addition as a copy of foo, and foo is scheduled for removal. svn move does not create intermediate directories.

Make Changes to Your Working Copy

Warning