Should I delete files using window manager or in version control - svn

Question

Hi, I'm using command line svn verison 1.4.2 to manage my working copy. Today, I cut some files from folder A to folder B. Where folder A is already under version control and folder B is not.

I used "svn st" to check status, and not surprisingly found these file from folder A were marked as "!". According to the svnbook from red-bean.com, it means "Item is missing (e.g., you moved or deleted it without using svn)."

My questions it that what is the best practice to delete files in my working copy?

In the end, I have to delete these files using command line one by one.

$ svn del FolderA/figures_index.log FolderA/figures_index.ps FolderA/figures_index.dvi FolderA/~$R_Paper_Final.doc

Is there any quicker way to delete these files in this folder?

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Subversion does not support moving, rather files must be copied and then deleted. So, the answer is to use SVN to both copy the files to the new location and delete the files from the original location. The command line tools do include a move command to do this for you.

Answer 2

Unless you write a script to run and delete the files you want, you are stuck deleting them one by one on the command line.

If you were to use a GUI SVN or a SVN that tied into the File Explorer you would be able to delete multiple files with ease.

Try Tortoise SVN, which ties into the file explorer allowing you to select multiple files and right click and delete several at once.

Answer 3

SVN is very picky about this particular topic. I suggest that you use ANKHSVN in visual studio (if that is where you do your coding) so that you can move files about in your project/solutions and Tortoise in explorer.

Answer 4

When moving from your working copy to a non-version-controlled folder, you should copy/paste (rather than cut/paste) then use svn delete (as you did) to remove the files from your working directory.

When you are moving files from one version-controlled folder to another in the same working copy, you can use svn move, which is functionally equivalent to an svn copy followed by an svn delete.

You can also use svn move to rename files in your working copy.