CollabNet Subversion

CollabNet Subversion can be downloaded from the CollabNet Subversion Downloads page. The manual can be read or downloaded from here, although the manual should come with the product download, and in Windows is even accessible from the Program menu.

To access code from an externally hosted project, such as my Rasch Itembank Project, only the client software needs to be installed.

And although they are kind enough to put the manual in the Windows GUI menu, the program itself has to be run from the command line. There is no need to set a binaries path, and if you navigate to the folder where you want to store your working copies of the code files, there is no need to set a target path either.

I had logged into my project from a browser before running the checkout command, and I was not asked for authentication when I ran it. The command for me was:

C:\Users\MJHIPP\Documents\Current\Java\Code\110918>svn checkout https://svn.java.net/svn/rasch-itembank~svn

This put a complete copy of my working files, including subfolders, into my working folder, as shown below. A quick glance at the screenshot will also reveal a batch file, which I used to run the svn command, to save typing.

On this occasion I simply added a stable working copy to the tags folder and reuploaded. To add the copy I had to use the svn copy command:

C:\Users\MJHIPP\Documents\Current\Java\Code\110918\rasch-itembank~svn\trunk>svn copy client C:\Users\MJHIPP\Documents\Current\Java\Code\110918\rasch-itembank~svn\tags\Client110918

The basic syntax of the command is similar to DOS copy, except that you simply have to name a folder and all contents will be copied.

I then wanted to add a text file explaining the significance of the copy. Here I had to create the file first and then use svn add. So this command does not create files, but adds them to some sort of a list.

C:\Users\MJHIPP\Documents\Current\Java\Code\110918\rasch-itembank~svn\tags>svn add Client110918.txt

Before committing the changes I wanted to run svn status. Initially I tried to run the from the parent directory into which I had downloaded my working copy, but it actually had to be done from the root directory of the working copy:

C:\Users\MJHIPP\Documents\Current\Java\Code\110918\rasch-itembank~svn>svn status

and the report came back:

A tags\Client110918.txt
A + tags\Client110918

The svn update command confirmed that nothing had changed on the server while I was working. I then added a comment to the svn commit command:

C:\Users\MJHIPP\Documents\Current\Java\Code\110918\rasch-itembank~svn>svn commit -m "Added working copy to tags folder."

My web log in had timed out by the time I did this, so I was prompted to log in again on the command screen.

Authentication realm: Subversion Repository
Username: jhipp117
Password for 'jhipp117': ******
Adding tags\Client110918
Adding tags\Client110918.txt
Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 12.

Having done this, I am now free to start hacking away at the main code.