How can I translate filenames during a Subversion checkout?

Question

Can Subversion support translating filename path components during checkout/export and commit? For example, can I set up SVN (client side or server side, doesn't matter) to automatically substitute and ':' characters in path names, replacing them with the character '+', instead?

Basically, Windows can't tolerate certain characters in filenames (like ':', for instance), and the official suggestion is to not use those characters when Windows clients may need to access your repo. Sometimes, this isn't an option: We keep Linux /etc/ config trees in SVN, and machines with interface aliases have filenames like 'ifcfg-eth0:0' under 'sysconfig/network-scripts'.

Is there any way for either the Subversion client (or the Eclipse editor, which I'm using, now) to automatically translate arbitrary path components on checkout/export, and then re-translate back during a commit? If not, is there any way for SVN server-side hook scripts to handle this?

Answer 1

You're looking for hooks, which SVN supports, but there isn't one for checkout. TortoiseSVN Client does however. This may be what you're looking for, http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/tsvn_1.5_releasenotes.html#client-side-hooks.