Question

I start working at an existing project (an web application) that was created by someone else. I would like to put it under version control (using SVN). How can I do that? Do I have to move the project files in a repository, or there is another way?

Answer 1

If you already have a repository, you can svn import the project then checkout a working copy.

# Make a new directory in the repo
svn mkdir http://repository.url/repo/newproject
# Import the project to the repo
svn import /local/path/to/project http://repository.url/repo/newproject

Then the next step is to checkout the code so you are working with a svn working copy.

# Rename or delete the existing code
# to /local/path/to/project.old
svn checkout http://repository.url/repo/newproject

At this point, the original local project files are no longer needed. You can delete them if the checked out working version is all in order.

Update:

To get the production server to reflect changes you have made and committed from local development, you need to have a working copy on the web server as well. Use the same process to rename or delete the old code, then checkout a working copy onto the production environment.

After making and committing changes in development, you need to svn update on the production server to bring it up to date.

# In production...
cd /path/to/project
# Update the production working copy...
svn update

Note: Make sure your web server is configured to deny access to .svn directories!!!