Committing file deletions to svn repository whilst ignoring some other local mods

Question

I have svn repository where I have scheduled some files and folders to be moved in the repository with svn mv. I also have some files that are peers of the files to be moved that have local modifications of which I only want a subset of those files to be committed along with the moves.

e.g. the output of svn st would look like:

D      foo/bar
D      foo/bar/a.txt
D      foo/bar/b.txt
M      foo/exclude.txt
M      foo/include.txt
A      foo/whiz/bar
A  +   foo/whiz/bar/c.txt
A  +   foo/whiz/bar/d.txt

To commit to the moves to the repository, I would need to perform the commit on foo but that would also commit the modifications to foo/exclude.txt and foo/include.txt. How would I commit only the deletions/additions as a result of the move plus the mods to foo/include.txt whilst excluding foo/exclude.txt?

I have a feeling the answer lies with the --depth argument to svn ci but it's not clear to me how it will operate.

Answer 1

Why not commit the individual files rather than the tree?

$ svn ci foo/bar
$ svn ci foo/whiz
...

Answer 2

With SVN, that behaviour is usually undesired. The short answer is, don't do it.

But of course ther are other ways around it (with SVN):

• Branch out and then merge back later (painful if you aren't familiar with the process)
• Delete foo/exclude.txt on the SVN by using svn delete --keep-local would work too, but it would also mean that file will become unversioned until you svn add it again.

What's your use case? Why do you need this behaviour?