subversion structure questions

Question

Just moved to subversion...from visual studio. I love it already! Can someone briefly explain

1. Repository
2. Branches
3. Tags
4. Trunk

Do I need to create a new repository for every project? Or a new trunk?

Thanks

Answer 1

You don't need a separate repository, but you can if you want. I recommend reading the book at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/. Grab the pdf version or whatever. It doesn't take too long, and it explains some things pretty well. I read it, and found that I'm glad I did.

Answer 2

Remember that subversion is just a fancy filesystem that supports versioning. Think of a repository as a "drive root" like "C:/".

Each project gets a trunk, tags and branches directory. All of your day to day work happens in the trunk. Experimental code is done in a branch and then merged back into the trunk at a later date. Tags are for when you release the software. These are not to be edited. When you release the software, you create a tag with a unique name based on what is currently in the trunk.

I can't say whether or not you need a separate repository for each project, there are pros and cons. This blog posting details them:

1. Simplified administration. One set of hooks to deploy. One repository to backup. etc.
2. Branch/tag flexibility. With the code all in one repository it makes it easier to create a branch or tag involving multiple projects.
3. Move code easily. Perhaps you want to take a section of code from one project and use it in another, or turn it into a library for several projects. It is easy to move the code within the same repository and retain the history of the code in the process.

Here are some of the drawbacks to the single repository approach, advantages to the multiple repository approach.

1. Size. It might be easier to deal with many smaller repositories than one large one. For example, if you retire a project you can just archive the repository to media and remove it from the disk and free up the storage. Maybe you need to dump/load a repository for some reason, such as to take advantage of a new Subversion feature. This is easier to do and with less impact if it is a smaller repository. Even if you eventually want to do it to all of your repositories, it will have less impact to do them one at a time, assuming there is not a pressing need to do them all at once.
2. Global revision number. Even though this should not be an issue, some people perceive it to be one and do not like to see the revision number advance on the repository and for inactive projects to have large gaps in their revision history.
3. Access control. While Subversion's authz mechanism allows you to restrict access as needed to parts of the repository, it is still easier to do this at the repository level. If you have a project that only a select few individuals should access, this is easier to do with a single repository for that project.
4. Administrative flexibility. If you have multiple repositories, then it is easier to implement different hook scripts based on the needs of the repository/projects. If you want uniform hook scripts, then a single repository might be better, but if each project wants its own commit email style then it is easier to have those projects in separate repositories

Answer 3

I agree, read the svnbook. It's a great resource.

Do I need to create a new repository for every project? Or a new trunk?

Kevin covered the single/multiple repository trade-offs pretty well. When we started with svn, we used one repository for all of our development projects. It worked well and had all the advantages mentioned. However, as the repository got bigger it got more difficult to administer because of the size of the dump file and resulting issues during backup. It also became an issue that projects couldn't easily be archived out of the repository - it's certainly possible but it requires dumping and pulling out projects from the repository. They aren't issues you can't get around but it's something to keep in mind.

1. Repository
2. Branches
3. Tags
4. Trunk

Branches, tags and the trunk are just copies of your files contained in the repository. It allows you to segregate and check-mark your files at whatever time you feel appropriate (usually at a release or a feature branch).

An important thing to keep in mind about branches, tags and trunk is that they just conventions in svn. There is no functional difference between the three locations, they are just an accepted usage model and they can be changed or organized differently if you have a good reason. I'm not recommending that you organize differently but you'll find that svn is very flexible because there isn't really a forced organizational structure other than convention.

Depending on how many projects you decide to have in your repository, you may organize differently.

You can have the subdirectories with projects under it:

\repo
  \branches
    \...
  \tags
    \...
  \trunk
    \..

or you can have projects contain the subdirectories:

\repo
  \Project1
    \branches
    \tags
    \trunk
  \Project2
    \branches
    \tags
    \trunk

There are trade-offs that are covered in the svnbook. The first method is usually used if you only have one project per repository and the second if there is more than one project in your repository.

The nice thing is that you can just start using svn and then figure out what you prefer. You should have some sort of organization but, with cheap copies, you can always re-arrange the folders as your situation or workflow changes.

Answer 4

An important thing to remember with SVN, compared to other version control systems like CVS or Git, is that SVN doesn't really have a concept or branching or tagging. As far as SVN is concerned it's all just a bunch of folders and files. So while you'll see a lot of people using the branches/tags/trunk setup, this is not required and you are able to deviate from this if you so choose.

Generally speaking 'trunk' is where you keep your active development going. So this is where you do all your commits. Whether or not you checkout trunk or use tags/branches instead is entirely up to you.

Branches, as I've used them, are usually for when you need to do large changes to your application but don't want them in trunk because you want to be able to continue developing against trunk without deploying your other changes. In this case you may have something like

\repo
  \trunk
  \branches
    \version_two

In this case you can develop in both trunk and version_two separately and, assuming your live site is a checkout of trunk, you don't need to worry about 'accidentally' breaking your live site with your other changes. And when those changes are done and ready you just merge them back into trunk whenever you want.

Tags can be used similarly to branches, in that instead of checking out trunk and just using 'svn up' to update your repository you instead of several tags, each representing one release. So your repo may look something like

/repo
  /trunk
  /branch
    /version_one
    /version_two
  /tags
    /1.0.0
    /1.0.1
    /1.1.0

In this case the general idea is that when you're ready to do a deploy you do an

svn copy

To copy trunk over to a tag (in this case the next one could be 1.1.1, 1.2.0, 2.0.0, etc). How you name your tags it entirely up to you though and, again, depends on your project and requirements. With this route instead of doing a regular 'svn up' you would have to do an svn switch. So you have to deploy with

svn switch https://svn.yourrepo.com/repo/tags/1.1.0

The switch will automatically do updates, adds and deletes on the appropriate files.

When it comes to one repo for many projects or separate repos for each one I am an advocate of one repo per project. It provides the additional benefits of easily managing access to it. But most importantly it means that each project has a separate commit history and separate logs. This m

Answer 5

Reading your tags I see you started using VisualSVN instead of your old VSS system. (Your question says you stopped using Visual Studio.. which makes VisualSVN a strange choice).

One of the major differences between SourceSafe and VSS is that you can choose different tools to access the same repository (and you can switch every time you like as they all share the same workingcopy).

E.g.:

• TortoiseSVN for Explorer integration.
• The normal subversion client for scripts.
• VisualSVN as Visual Studio frontend for TortoiseSVN
• AnkhSVN as real SCC (VAPI) package in Visual Studio.