When I modify a property (say, svn:ignore) on the top most directory I checked out (most of the time it’s trunk, anyway), using TortoiseSVN the client(s) recursively go through the complete project.
Big tree, much data, takes a long time.
How can I avoid this? There may be changes somewhere else but I know that I’m just not interested in them and uncheck them anyway.
I’m aware of the sparse checkout feature but I don’t see how I can apply this here as I don’t have a sparse checkout. Do I need to create a second, sparse checkout, apply the changes/commit and then update my other copy?
Try:
[Edit: The OP updated his question to clarify that he’s referring to TortoiseSVN, not the regular Subversion command-line.]
No, TortoiseSVN does not provide a direct way to non-recursively commit. However, if you commit something at the top level of a directory but not something at a lower level (for example, you deselect it), this by necessity causes a non-recursive commit to occur. See here.
Thus, there’s a workaround. If you really, really want to do this and you don’t like the command line, just make a trivial change to a file in an underlying directory, commit your real file while deselecting the dummy change, then revert the dummy change. This will force TortoiseSVN to do a non-recursive commit.