Do I lose change information with svn move --force?

Question

svn move allows to move a file while retaining traceability of changes. Now I have the following scenario:

1. svn copy dir1/file1 dir1/file2
2. modified dir1/file1 and dir1/file2
3. svn move dir1/file1 to dir2/file1

Subversion tells me it doesn't move the file unless I use the --force option, because there are changes to dir1/file1. Suppose I do the forced move, what consequences does that have on the traceability of changes to file1 and/or file2?

Answer 1

No, you won't lose any change information. But the --force option reminds you that you have local modifications and might not want to move that file (yet). And you can't 'revert' the move with 'svn revert' later without losing those local modifications. That's why you have to use --force.

Answer 2

Well, svn complains on file1 and file2 not beeing commited before moving file1 to file2. If you force, and commit, you will have you changes on file1 in the repository, but the local changes to file2 are lost. However this should not be a problem, when you move file1 to file2, you do expect to overwrite the content of file2.

Traceability is granting, what you loose are you local changes to file2.