Question

Given a Subversion project where certain patterns are always to be ignored,

*.log
*.idx

and certain patterns are ignored only in, e.g., the project root,

*.out

how can I maintain both lists in a single svn:ignore property?

To maintain the project-wide list, I would recursively apply the root folder’s svn:ignore property whenever I change it. But that would include patterns which should only be ignored in the root.

If I don’t apply it recursively, though, then the other patterns will not be ignored in subfolders.

UPDATE: If you’re used to Mercurial (like I am), you might suggest putting paths in the root’s ignore list, like

*/*.idx

or

*\*.idx

Neither of these works for me in the latest Subversion.

Answer 1

There are two mechanisms to work with ignores in Subversion:

• Global Ignores. Pattern may be added to the list of global-ignores in the subversion configuration. Applies globally to all the projects. Generally speaking defining too much of global-ignores is a bad thing.
• svn:ignore property. By setting svn:ignore property one can define list of files or folders ignored in the directory for which this property is defined.

Both global ignores and svn:ignore property work not with regular expressions but use patterns complying to the fnmatch pattern syntax. Which defines only three types of the wild cards ?, *, and []. You may play with ls to feel how these patterns work.

Subversion properties may be set recursively. This will work for *.idx and *.log files:

$ svn st
? test.log
? test.idx
? recursive/test.log

Create a file ignores with two lines:

*.log
*.idx

Then set svn:ingore property recursively:

$ svn propset --recursive svn:ignore -F ingores  .
property 'svn:ignore' set on '.'
property 'svn:ignore' set on 'recursive'
$ rm ignores
$ svn st --no-ignores
I test.log
I test.idx
I recursive/test.log

After that edit svn:ignore property in the project root:

$ svn propedit svn:ignore PROJECT_ROOT

and add exclusion for the *.out pattern.

Given that:

If I don’t apply it recursively, though, then the other patterns will not be ignored in subfolders.

The only way is to add such patterns to the global-ignores.

Some notes:

• After setting svn:ignore property may be deleted recursively with
  the help of the svn propdel -R ...
• This way of adding ignores does not feel flexible (to me). For instance when creating new folder one should remember to set
  project-wide svn:ignore property.
• Recursive propset should be done early. It deletes old value of the property being set.
• Major plus is that ignores are rarely edited.
• Editing properties recursively seems to be easier when done through the GUI tools

Hope this helps.