How can I maintain history of a file that is moved to a directory overwriting a file of the same name

Question

Consider the following subversion directory structure

/dir1/file.txt

/dir2/file.txt

I want to move the file.txt in dir1 to replace the same file in dir2 and ensure that the history for the dir1 file is maintained. I don't care about the history of original dir2 file.

Is this possible using subversion commands and not hacking the backend?

Answer 1

Firstly you should never consider hacking the backend - it negates the point of using SVN in the first place.

I don't see why you couldn't just do

svn rm /dir2/file.txt
svn mv /dir1/file.txt /dir2/file.txt

the history of the file will follow it after the move.

Answer 2

Try

1. Delete dir2/file.txt and commit
2. issue a svn move command to move dir1/file.txt to dir2/file.txt and commit - The history should be preserved.