Svn: Ignoring an Already Committed File

SVN: Ignoring an already committed file

Make a clean checkout, svn delete the file and add the ignore. Then commit this. Everyone else will have to take care (once) that their local copy isn't deleted on the next svn update, but after that, the local file would stay undisturbed and ignored by SVN.

SVN: Is there a way to mark a file as do not commit ?

Subversion does not have a built-in "do not commit" / "ignore on commit" feature, as of February 2016 / version 1.9. This answer is a non-ideal command-line workaround

As the OP states, TortoiseSVN has a built in changelist, "ignore-on-commit", which is automatically excluded from commits. The command-line client does not have this, so you need to use multiple changelists to accomplish this same behavior (with caveats):

• one for work you want to commit [work]
• one for things you want to ignore [ignore-on-commit]

Since there's precedent with TortoiseSVN, I use "ignore-on-commit" in my examples for the files I don't want to commit. I'll use "work" for the files I do, but you could pick any name you wanted.

First, add all files to a changelist named "work". This must be run from the root of your working copy:

svn cl work . -R

This will add all files in the working copy recursively to the changelist named "work". There is a disadvantage to this - as new files are added to the working copy, you'll need to specifically add the new files or they won't be included. Second, if you have to run this again you'll then need to re-add all of your "ignore-on-commit" files again. Not ideal - you could start maintaining your own 'ignore' list in a file as others have done.

Then, for the files you want to exclude:

svn cl ignore-on-commit path\to\file-to-ignore

Because files can only be in one changelist, running this addition after your previous "work" add will remove the file you want to ignore from the "work" changelist and put it in the "ignore-on-commit" changelist.

When you're ready to commit your modified files you do wish to commit, you'd then simply add "--cl work" to your commit:

svn commit --cl work -m "message"

Here's what a simple example looks like on my machine:

D:\workspace\trunk>svn cl work . -R
Skipped '.'
Skipped 'src'
Skipped 'src\conf'
A [work] src\conf\db.properties
Skipped 'src\java'
Skipped 'src\java\com'
Skipped 'src\java\com\corp'
Skipped 'src\java\com\corp\sample'
A [work] src\java\com\corp\sample\Main.java
Skipped 'src\java\com\corp\sample\controller'
A [work] src\java\com\corp\sample\controller\Controller.java
Skipped 'src\java\com\corp\sample\model'
A [work] src\java\com\corp\sample\model\Model.java
Skipped 'src\java\com\corp\sample\view'
A [work] src\java\com\corp\sample\view\View.java
Skipped 'src\resource'
A [work] src\resource\icon.ico
Skipped 'src\test'

D:\workspace\trunk>svn cl ignore-on-commit src\conf\db.properties
D [work] src\conf\db.properties
A [ignore-on-commit] src\conf\db.properties

D:\workspace\trunk>svn status

--- Changelist 'work':
        src\java\com\corp\sample\Main.java
        src\java\com\corp\sample\controller\Controller.java
        src\java\com\corp\sample\model\Model.java
M       src\java\com\corp\sample\view\View.java
        src\resource\icon.ico

--- Changelist 'ignore-on-commit':
M       src\conf\db.properties

D:\workspace\trunk>svn commit --cl work -m "fixed refresh issue"
Sending        src\java\com\corp\sample\view\View.java
Transmitting file data .done
Committing transaction...
Committed revision 9.

An alternative would be to simply add every file you wish to commit to a 'work' changelist, and not even maintain an ignore list, but this is a lot of work, too. Really, the only simple, ideal solution is if/when this gets implemented in SVN itself. There's a longstanding issue about this in the Subversion issue tracker, SVN-2858, in the event this changes in the future.

SVN - ignoring files already in repository

I do this by having a base version of the file checked-in as foo.base, and svn lock this so that it's read-only on checkout. Then have each developer copy this file to their own personal foo file, which is ignored by svn-ignore.

svn:ignore for a file already committed in subclipse

You probably need to Update from svn, rather than reverting, to pull in the changes that you made in the repository.

Revert in Subversion just re-syncs your working copy with the server, at the version you had previously checked out. If you made the change elsewhere, you need to update your working copy to point to the newer version on the server: that's the update operation.

SVN still asking to commit ignored files

You can't. svn:ignore only affects files that are not in the repository. See Subversion book:

Once an object is under Subversion's control, the ignore pattern mechanisms no longer apply to it. In other words, don't expect Subversion to avoid committing changes you've made to a versioned file simply because that file's name matches an ignore pattern—Subversion always notices all of its versioned objects.

And

svn:ignore

If present on a directory, the value is a list of unversioned file patterns to be ignored by svn status and other subcommands. See the section called "Ignoring Unversioned Items".

Subversion svn:ignore after a commit - files are not iggnore

That is what it is supposed to do, but you could try these.

Create a pre-commit hook script that reject the commit when a specific property is being added. You can then add this property to files in the working copy to prevent commits.

TortoiseSVN will exclude files in the special changelist "ignore-on-commit". However, this is not honored by the SVN command-line client.

SVN: Is there a way to mark a file as "do not commit"?

how to ignore a committed file in subversion?

move that file to a different directory undersubversion and do not check out the new folder

so for example your source tree looks like

src/project/fileIdontWant
src/project/theRestofMyStuff

Create a new folder in a seperate folder

src/machineSpecific/fileIdontWant
src/project/theRestofMyStuff

Now only check out src/project from now on unless you want src/machineSpecific project

SVN: How to ignore a modified file on commit?

Alas, the commit many files with some annoying changes ignored problem.

Solution 1: copy, revert and commit

$cp b /tmp/
$svn revert b
$svn commit -m 'commit message'
$mv /tmp/b ./

Solution 2: copy, commit, reverse the effect of b, recommit b

$cp b /tmp/
$svn commit -m 'commit message'
$svn merge -c -{new revision} b
$svn commit b -m 'revert message for b'
$cp /tmp/b ./b

The second approach is less preferable since you introduce broken code in svn.

How do I ignore files in Subversion?

(This answer has been updated to match SVN 1.8 and 1.9's behaviour)

You have 2 questions:

Marking files as ignored:

By "ignored file" I mean the file won't appear in lists even as "unversioned": your SVN client will pretend the file doesn't exist at all in the filesystem.

Ignored files are specified by a "file pattern". The syntax and format of file patterns is explained in SVN's online documentation: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.advanced.props.special.ignore.html "File Patterns in Subversion".

Subversion, as of version 1.8 (June 2013) and later, supports 3 different ways of specifying file patterns. Here's a summary with examples:

1 - Runtime Configuration Area - global-ignores option:

• This is a client-side only setting, so your global-ignores list won't be shared by other users, and it applies to all repos you checkout onto your computer.
• This setting is defined in your Runtime Configuration Area file:
  
  
  • Windows (file-based) - C:\Users\{you}\AppData\Roaming\Subversion\config
  • Windows (registry-based) - Software\Tigris.org\Subversion\Config\Miscellany\global-ignores in both HKLM and HKCU.
  • Linux/Unix - ~/.subversion/config

2 - The svn:ignore property, which is set on directories (not files):

• This is stored within the repo, so other users will have the same ignore files. Similar to how .gitignore works.
• svn:ignore is applied to directories and is non-recursive or inherited. Any file or immediate subdirectory of the parent directory that matches the File Pattern will be excluded.

• While SVN 1.8 adds the concept of "inherited properties", the svn:ignore property itself is ignored in non-immediate descendant directories:

  cd ~/myRepoRoot                             # Open an existing repo.
  echo "foo" > "ignoreThis.txt"                # Create a file called "ignoreThis.txt".
  
  svn status                                  # Check to see if the file is ignored or not.
  > ?    ./ignoreThis.txt
  > 1 unversioned file                        # ...it is NOT currently ignored.
  
  svn propset svn:ignore "ignoreThis.txt" .   # Apply the svn:ignore property to the "myRepoRoot" directory.
  svn status
  > 0 unversioned files                       # ...but now the file is ignored!
  
  cd subdirectory                             # now open a subdirectory.
  echo "foo" > "ignoreThis.txt"                # create another file named "ignoreThis.txt".
  
  svn status
  > ?    ./subdirectory/ignoreThis.txt        # ...and is is NOT ignored!
  > 1 unversioned file
  

  (So the file ./subdirectory/ignoreThis is not ignored, even though "ignoreThis.txt" is applied on the . repo root).

• Therefore, to apply an ignore list recursively you must use svn propset svn:ignore <filePattern> . --recursive.

  • This will create a copy of the property on every subdirectory.
  • If the <filePattern> value is different in a child directory then the child's value completely overrides the parents, so there is no "additive" effect.
  • So if you change the <filePattern> on the root ., then you must change it with --recursive to overwrite it on the child and descendant directories.

• I note that the command-line syntax is counter-intuitive.

  • I started-off assuming that you would ignore a file in SVN by typing something like svn ignore pathToFileToIgnore.txt however this is not how SVN's ignore feature works.

3- The svn:global-ignores property. Requires SVN 1.8 (June 2013):

• This is similar to svn:ignore, except it makes use of SVN 1.8's "inherited properties" feature.
• Compare to svn:ignore, the file pattern is automatically applied in every descendant directory (not just immediate children).
  
  
  • This means that is unnecessary to set svn:global-ignores with the --recursive flag, as inherited ignore file patterns are automatically applied as they're inherited.

• Running the same set of commands as in the previous example, but using svn:global-ignores instead:

  cd ~/myRepoRoot                                    # Open an existing repo
  echo "foo" > "ignoreThis.txt"                       # Create a file called "ignoreThis.txt"
  svn status                                         # Check to see if the file is ignored or not
  > ?    ./ignoreThis.txt
  > 1 unversioned file                               # ...it is NOT currently ignored
  
  svn propset svn:global-ignores "ignoreThis.txt" .
  svn status
  > 0 unversioned files                              # ...but now the file is ignored!
  
  cd subdirectory                                    # now open a subdirectory
  echo "foo" > "ignoreThis.txt"                       # create another file named "ignoreThis.txt"
  svn status
  > 0 unversioned files                              # the file is ignored here too!
  

For TortoiseSVN users:

This whole arrangement was confusing for me, because TortoiseSVN's terminology (as used in their Windows Explorer menu system) was initially misleading to me - I was unsure what the significance of the Ignore menu's "Add recursively", "Add *" and "Add " options. I hope this post explains how the Ignore feature ties-in to the SVN Properties feature. That said, I suggest using the command-line to set ignored files so you get a feel for how it works instead of using the GUI, and only using the GUI to manipulate properties after you're comfortable with the command-line.

Listing files that are ignored:

The command svn status will hide ignored files (that is, files that match an RGA global-ignores pattern, or match an immediate parent directory's svn:ignore pattern or match any ancesor directory's svn:global-ignores pattern.

Use the --no-ignore option to see those files listed. Ignored files have a status of I, then pipe the output to grep to only show lines starting with "I".

The command is:

svn status --no-ignore | grep "^I"

For example:

svn status
> ? foo                             # An unversioned file
> M modifiedFile.txt                # A versioned file that has been modified

svn status --no-ignore
> ? foo                             # An unversioned file
> I ignoreThis.txt                  # A file matching an svn:ignore pattern
> M modifiedFile.txt                # A versioned file that has been modified

svn status --no-ignore | grep "^I"
> I ignoreThis.txt                  # A file matching an svn:ignore pattern

ta-da!

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