Subversion: permanently remove incorrectly checked in directory/project?

Question

I attempted to add a new project to an existing svn repository and ended up screwing it up royally - the wrong directories got included, including some very large files, causing me to cancel part way thru...

I'd like to remove the directory from subversion completely and try again. As I understand svn delete records the deletion but keeps knowledge of the old files around - it keeps a version of the files in its history.

Is there a way to completely and permanently delete the project I mistakenly checked in? Note that I don't want to get rid of the whole repository - I have other projects (directories) that I want to keep in there. I just want to get rid of the incorrectly created directory.

Answer 1

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/560684/svn-obliterate

Answer 2

There's a method detailed here that I've used before;

http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.reposadmin.maint.html#svn.reposadmin.maint.filtering

You basically dump the repository using 'svnadmin dump', filter the files from this with 'svndumpfilter', then create a new repository using 'svnadmin load'

Answer 3

Use svn dump filter to exclude the directory and then reload repository from filtered dump.

Depending upon the number of users, I would test this on another repository (backup) and see what happens to working copies, as you may need to relocate them.