Question

I’m really new to SVN and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.

I start with a repository that contains:

HelloWorld.java

I create a working set on my computer, and then copy HelloWorld.java to HelloWorldDe.java. I then rename HelloWorld.java to HelloWorldEn.java and modify a single line in HelloWorldDe.java. After this I have a working set that contains:

HelloWorldEn.java <-- Renamed copy of HelloWorld.java
HelloWorldDe.java <-- Renamed copy of HelloWorld.java with one line change

When I do SVN status i get this:

A HelloWorldDe.java
D HelloWorld.java
A HelloWorldEn.java

When I do SVN diff I get this:

Index: HelloWorldDe.java
===================================================================
--- HelloWorldDe.java   (revision 0)
+++ HelloWorldDe.java   (revision 0)
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+public class HelloWorld {
+  public static void main( String [] args ) {
+    System.out.println("Hallo welt!");
+  }
+}
Index: HelloWorld.java
===================================================================
--- HelloWorld.java (revision 13)
+++ HelloWorld.java (working copy)
@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
-public class HelloWorld {
-  public static void main( String [] args ) {
-    System.out.println("Hello World!");
-  }
-}
Index: HelloWorldEn.java
===================================================================
--- HelloWorldEn.java   (revision 0)
+++ HelloWorldEn.java   (revision 0)
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+public class HelloWorld {
+  public static void main( String [] args ) {
+    System.out.println("Hello World!");
+  }
+}

However when i try to run “patch -p0 -i German.diff” on the original working set, I end up with this:

HelloWorld.java <-- Empty file
HelloWorldEn.java
HelloWorldDe.java

Can anyone explain why I’m getting an empty file instead of the file being deleted?

Answer 1

It’s because patch does not delete files. It only modifies them with the content in the patch file. So this:

--- HelloWorld.java (revision 13)
+++ HelloWorld.java (working copy)
@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
-public class HelloWorld {
-  public static void main( String [] args ) {
-    System.out.println("Hello World!");
-  }
-}

Won’t delete HelloWorld.java, it will only remove all the lines indicated with a -, which is all of them.

If you’d have committed the changes you made and then run svn up the file would have been deleted. But patch is not svn.