Question

I use SVN as the source control system, and I wonder how to compare directories while ignoring any metadata differences. Is there a way to tell svn diff to compare only the actual content and ignore any metadata?

I mean metadata like SVN properties, etc. that don’t affect the file content. Assume file X has an additional property in branch B compared to trunk T. Unfortunately it will show up in ‘svn diff T B’ even though the actual content of file X is the same.

I look for something like this:

svn diff https://example.org/tags/v1 https://example.org/tags/v2 -x -ignore-metadata --summarize 

Update: I partially solved this by diff’ing directly on the filesystem instead of using the SVN tools. See my own answer below…

Answer 1

There seems to be no way to get this done using the svn built-in tools. How I solved it: Export both trees and diff them diretly on the filesystem using your favourite diff tool. That’s somehow the only way to get this done :/