SVN: Ignore some directories recursively

Question

I don't want any directory named build or dist to go into my SVN no matter how deep in the tree it is.

Is this possible? In git I just put

build
dist

in my .gitignore at the root and it recursively ignores. How do I do this with svn? Please don't tell me to do a propset on every parent dir...

Answer 1

In order to ignore all such files in all repositories, you could add a global-ignores to your per-user configuration file.

On Unix-like systems, this area appears as a directory named .subversion in the user's home directory. On Win32 systems, Subversion creates a folder named Subversion, typically inside the Application Data area of the user's profile directory

See Configuration Options

Unfortunately, there's no per-repository option to do this. It's basically per-user, or per-directory, so the multiple svn:ignores is probably the way to go, as annoying as it can be.

Answer 2

add to your ~/.subversion/config or /etc/subversion/config file:

[miscellany]
global-ignores = build dist

Answer 3

It is not possible to do this. There are only two ignore mechanisms in Subversion, svn:ignore (which is nonrecursive) and global-ignores (which is not specific to a repository).

Answer 4

svn propset takes --recursive as an option, so you can do this, with two downsides:

1. you have to check out the entire repository (or at least all directories therein), and
2. you have to remember to set the svn:ignore property whenever you add a new directory