TortoiseSVN: how to set up projects on a existing directory structure of source code

Question

I have an old pet project I want to revive (haven't had enough time for it last year - small kid - you know) - so restored old copy of my dev folder from archive, but since I have rebuilt my machine since when - I can't remember what needs to be done now. I installed the latest version of TortoiseSVN, and the existing directory structure from my old dev machine looks like:

ProjectName
*SubProject1
**branches
***1.1
***1.2
**tags
**trunk

*SubProject2
**branches
**1.0.3
**1.0.4
**1.0.5
**tags
**trunk

I tried "import project" but it ask for a url - don't know what to specify there ... can someone post a url to a good TortSVN tutorial - so I could set up my projects quickly (I guess I need to setup SubProject1 and SubProject2) - then I install AnkhSVN for VS2008 and will spend this Sunday coding like crazy while I still have some time ;-)

Answer 1

Just hit F1. TortoiseSVN has good built-in help docs.

The url it's asking for is the svn repo to import your project into.

Answer 2

The Url you refer to is likely the address of the project at the Subversion repository (wherever that is, since you didn't mention any). If you right click on your local directory and choose properties you should be able to see a subversion tab where you can find the address your project came from.

Answer 3

Rather than focusing on TortoiseSVN specifically, I would actually recommend that you review the SVN documentation first:

http://svnbook.red-bean.com/

A good understanding of what's going on behind the scenes is really helpful when using Tortoise, Ankh, or any other front end.

---

Getting to your question, the URL is the URL of your SVN repository, plus any subdirectories. An example could be

file:///C:/svn/trunk/ProjectName

if your repository were stored locally, or

http://my.repo.site/trunk/ProjectName

if it is hosted on the Web.

Answer 4

If you don't have the repository data, then I think the best thing to do is make sure to remove all the .svn folders from your project folders - good discussion here - and start anew with the files you have. This will mean you don't get all the history you had previously, but, lacking the repository, I don't think there's a way to recover anyway.

Then using whatever tools you'd like create a new repository somewhere, checkout the empty root, copy in all of your folders and then commit.