Question

We have a subversion repository and just discovered that files in the subversion repository where moved from one folder to another using the filesystem operations resulting in a deletion and an addition to subversion. As expected history of the file was not taken over to the new location.
Is it possible to convert this wrongly done move into a true svn mv where the history is copied along?
The problem is that the commit has been a while back and there have been several commits on top of this commit. So a simple reverse merge and a proper move are out of option.

Answer 1

It is possible assuming you have direct access to the repository, can dump and reload it, so assuming.

In short the steps are:

1. Dump the repository..
2. Modify the dump (see below).
3. Create a new repository.
4. Load the modified dump into the new repository (loading the dump into the existing one would not replace the content, but actually be appended.
5. Verify the change.
6. Replace the old repository with the new repository.
   you need to dump the repository, modify the dump, delete, recreate and load the repository.

Required Dumpfile Modification

Your wrong move operation in the dumpfile will look something like that:

Revision-number: 2
Prop-content-length: 111
Content-length: 111

K 7
svn:log
V 13
Wrong rename.
K 10
svn:author
V 3
tom
K 8
svn:date
V 27
2012-11-22T22:11:49.101403Z
PROPS-END

Node-path: renamed file.txt
Node-kind: file
Node-action: add
Prop-content-length: 10
Text-content-length: 8
Text-content-md5: 226648ec2921fddba76a340ac976f760
Text-content-sha1: 18cc7289b71fd17898ca179dcb3a05f3d2a07e8b
Content-length: 18

PROPS-END
Content!

Node-path: file.txt
Node-action: delete

For further reading the dump file specification is worth checking out, however for your problem only a small set of entries are relevant: There are two nodes, one with Node-action: add, the other with Node-action: delete. All you need to do is to modify the dump so that it looks like:

Revision-number: 2
Prop-content-length: 111
Content-length: 111

K 7
svn:log
V 13
Right rename.
K 10
svn:author
V 3
tom
K 8
svn:date
V 27
2012-11-22T22:13:51.674043Z
PROPS-END

Node-path: renamed file.txt
Node-kind: file
Node-action: add
Node-copyfrom-rev: 1
Node-copyfrom-path: file.txt
Text-copy-source-md5: 226648ec2921fddba76a340ac976f760
Text-copy-source-sha1: 18cc7289b71fd17898ca179dcb3a05f3d2a07e8b


Node-path: file.txt
Node-action: delete

Thus, you need replace

    Prop-content-length: <a>
    Text-content-length: <b>
    Text-content-md5: <md5>
    Text-content-sha1: <sha1>
    Content-length: <e>

with

    Node-copyfrom-rev: <correct revision>
    Node-copyfrom-path: <correct path>
    Text-copy-source-md5: <md5>
    Text-copy-source-sha1: <sha1>

and remove the actual content of the file.

The delete action stays unchanged.