How to store static content across branches in a single location in version control

Question

[Just a random thought]

I have a pdf doc that is downloaded when the user clicks on 'help' on my website. Now, this is a pretty huge document and is saved in version control (SVN) and is thus copied for all branches that exist in SVN. This is static content and something that developers are not working on, and does not change often. Is there a more efficient way to store it (that would not hamper local deployments) that would make SVN checkouts and updates relatively faster.

I know the benefit we get is not huge, this is something that came to my head none the less.

Answer 1

You can put your pdf in separate dir:

/trunk
/branches
/doc <- here it is

and then “mount” it to your working copies using SVN’s externals mechanism

Answer 2

I would suggest to create the following structure under trunk

/trunk
   +-- doc 
   +-- src

This means every developer can checkout trunk/src do branching as always (svn cp ^/trunk ^/branches/NEWBRNACH) etc. If you need to change the doc just checkout trunk/doc instead...I would prefer that, cause the doc is in relation with your project and is under change like the source code.