How to edit log message already committed in Subversion

Question

Is there a way to edit the log message of a certain revision in Subversion  I accidentally wrote the wrong filename in my commit message which could be confusing later   I ve seen How do I edit an incorrect commit message in Git   but the solution to that question doesn t seem to be similar for Subversion  according to svn help commit

User · Answer

On Windows  using Tortoise SVN client    right click in your project folder and choose  Show log  in the Log Messages window  right click on a revision and choose  Edit log message    If it doesn t work it might because of the way SVN on server is setup  read other responses here

User · Answer

If your repository enables setting revision properties via the pre-revprop-change hook you can change log messages much easier   svn propedit --revprop -r 1234 svn log url   to repository   Or in TortoiseSVN  AnkhSVN and probably many other subversion clients by right clicking on a log entry and then  change log message

User · Answer

svnadmin setlog  path to repository -r revision number --bypass-hooks message file txt

User · Answer

Essentially you have to have admin rights  directly or indirectly  to the repository to do this   You can either configure the repository to allow all users to do this  or you can modify the log message directly on the server    See this part of the Subversion FAQ  emphasis mine       Log messages are kept in the   repository as properties attached to   each revision  By default  the log   message property  svn log  cannot be   edited once it is committed  That is   because changes to revision properties    of which svn log is one  cause the   property s previous value to be   permanently discarded  and Subversion   tries to prevent you from doing this   accidentally  However  there are a   couple of ways to get Subversion to   change a revision property       The first way is for the repository   administrator to enable revision   property modifications  This is done   by creating a hook called    pre-revprop-change   see this section   in the Subversion book for more   details about how to do this   The    pre-revprop-change  hook has access   to the old log message before it is   changed  so it can preserve it in some   way  for example  by sending an   email   Once revision property   modifications are enabled  you can   change a revision s log message by   passing the --revprop switch to svn   propedit or svn propset  like either   one of these    svn propedit -r N --revprop svn log URL   svn propset -r N --revprop svn log  new log message  URL        where N   is the revision number whose log   message you wish to change  and URL is   the location of the repository  If you   run this command from within a working   copy  you can leave off the URL       The second way of changing a log   message is to use svnadmin setlog    This must be done by referring to the   repository s location on the   filesystem  You cannot modify a remote   repository using this command     svnadmin setlog REPOS PATH -r N FILE       where REPOS PATH is the repository   location  N is the revision number   whose log message you wish to change    and FILE is a file containing the new   log message  If the    pre-revprop-change  hook is not in   place  or you want to bypass the hook   script for some reason   you can also   use the --bypass-hooks option    However  if you decide to use this   option  be very careful  You may be   bypassing such things as email   notifications of the change  or backup   systems that keep track of revision   properties

User · Answer

svnadmin setlog  path to repository -r revision number --bypass-hooks message file txt

User · Answer

When you run this command    svn propedit svn log --revprop -r NNN    and just in case you see this message      DAV request failed  it s possible that   the repository s pre-revprop-change   hook either failed or is non-existent   Its because Subversion doesn   t allow you to modify log messages because they are unversioned and will be lost permanently   Unix-hosted SVN  Go to the hooks directory on your Subversion server  replace   svn reponame with the directory of your repository   cd   svn reponame hooks   Remove the extension  mv pre-revprop-change tmpl pre-revprop-change   Make it executable  cannot do chmod  x    chmod 755 pre-revprop-change   Source  Windows-hosted SVN  The template files in the hooks directory cannot be used as they are Unix-specific  You need to copy a Windows batch file pre-revprop-change bat to the hooks directory  e g  the one provided here

User · Answer

Essentially you have to have admin rights  directly or indirectly  to the repository to do this   You can either configure the repository to allow all users to do this  or you can modify the log message directly on the server    See this part of the Subversion FAQ  emphasis mine       Log messages are kept in the   repository as properties attached to   each revision  By default  the log   message property  svn log  cannot be   edited once it is committed  That is   because changes to revision properties    of which svn log is one  cause the   property s previous value to be   permanently discarded  and Subversion   tries to prevent you from doing this   accidentally  However  there are a   couple of ways to get Subversion to   change a revision property       The first way is for the repository   administrator to enable revision   property modifications  This is done   by creating a hook called    pre-revprop-change   see this section   in the Subversion book for more   details about how to do this   The    pre-revprop-change  hook has access   to the old log message before it is   changed  so it can preserve it in some   way  for example  by sending an   email   Once revision property   modifications are enabled  you can   change a revision s log message by   passing the --revprop switch to svn   propedit or svn propset  like either   one of these    svn propedit -r N --revprop svn log URL   svn propset -r N --revprop svn log  new log message  URL        where N   is the revision number whose log   message you wish to change  and URL is   the location of the repository  If you   run this command from within a working   copy  you can leave off the URL       The second way of changing a log   message is to use svnadmin setlog    This must be done by referring to the   repository s location on the   filesystem  You cannot modify a remote   repository using this command     svnadmin setlog REPOS PATH -r N FILE       where REPOS PATH is the repository   location  N is the revision number   whose log message you wish to change    and FILE is a file containing the new   log message  If the    pre-revprop-change  hook is not in   place  or you want to bypass the hook   script for some reason   you can also   use the --bypass-hooks option    However  if you decide to use this   option  be very careful  You may be   bypassing such things as email   notifications of the change  or backup   systems that keep track of revision   properties

User · Answer

svnadmin setlog  path to repository -r revision number --bypass-hooks message file txt

User · Answer

I was recently tasked with this as well   We wanted to allow our programmers to modify only their own commit messages  and restrict how far back they are allowed to do so  We decided they would be allowed to modify any log messages committed that day  to fix typo s etc   After looking at a couple other examples online I hacked this together  we are in a windows environment  so this is our contents of pre-revprop-change bat    ECHO OFF  set repos  1 set rev  2 set user  3 set propname  4 set action  5                                                                            Only allow changes to svn log  The author  date and other revision    properties cannot be changed                                                                        if  I not   propname     svn log  goto ERROR PROPNAME                                                                            Only allow modifications to svn log  no addition overwrite or deletion                                                                         if  I not   action     M  goto ERROR ACTION                                                                            Only allow user to modify their own log messages                                                                        set AUTHOR  for  f  delims     a in   svnlook author -r  REV   REPOS    do  set AUTHOR   a  if  I not   AUTHOR      user   goto ERROR WRONGUSER                                                                            Only allow user to modify log messages from today  old messages locked down                                                                        set DATESTAMP  for  f  delims     a in   svnlook date -r  REV   REPOS    do  set DATESTAMP   a  for  F  tokens 1-2 delims      a in    DATESTAMP    do    set DATESTAMPDATE   a  set DATESTAMPTIME   b       Expects DATESTAMPDATE in the format  2012-02-24 for  F  tokens 1-3 delims -    a in    DATESTAMPDATE    do    set DATESTAMPYEAR   a  set DATESTAMPMONTH   b  set DATESTAMPDAY   c       Expects date in the format  Thu 08 01 2013 for  F  tokens 1-4 delims       a in    date    do    set YEAR   d  set MONTH   b  set DAY   c    if  I not   DATESTAMPYEAR      YEAR   goto ERROR MSGTOOOLD if  I not   DATESTAMPMONTH      MONTH   goto ERROR MSGTOOOLD if  I not   DATESTAMPDAY      DAY   goto ERROR MSGTOOOLD                                                                            Make sure that the new svn log message contains some text                                                                         set bIsEmpty true for  f  tokens      g in   find  V      do    set bIsEmpty false   if   bIsEmpty     true  goto ERROR EMPTY  goto  eof   ERROR EMPTY echo Empty svn log properties are not allowed   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR PROPNAME echo Only changes to svn log revision properties are allowed   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR ACTION echo Only modifications to svn log revision properties are allowed   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR WRONGUSER echo You are not allowed to modify other user s log messages   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR MSGTOOOLD echo You are not allowed to modify log messages older than today   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR EXIT exit  b 1    Edit  Original idea for this came from this thread

User · Answer

If you are using an IDE like eclipse  you can use this easy way   Right click on the project - gt  Team - Show history   In that right click on the revision id for your commit and select  Set commit properties    You can modify the message as you want from here

User · Answer

Here s a handy variation that I don t see mentioned in the faq  You can return the current message for editing by specifying a text editor   svn propedit svn log --revprop -r N --editor-cmd vim

User · Answer

When you run this command    svn propedit svn log --revprop -r NNN    and just in case you see this message      DAV request failed  it s possible that   the repository s pre-revprop-change   hook either failed or is non-existent   Its because Subversion doesn   t allow you to modify log messages because they are unversioned and will be lost permanently   Unix-hosted SVN  Go to the hooks directory on your Subversion server  replace   svn reponame with the directory of your repository   cd   svn reponame hooks   Remove the extension  mv pre-revprop-change tmpl pre-revprop-change   Make it executable  cannot do chmod  x    chmod 755 pre-revprop-change   Source  Windows-hosted SVN  The template files in the hooks directory cannot be used as they are Unix-specific  You need to copy a Windows batch file pre-revprop-change bat to the hooks directory  e g  the one provided here

User · Answer

If your repository enables setting revision properties via the pre-revprop-change hook you can change log messages much easier   svn propedit --revprop -r 1234 svn log url   to repository   Or in TortoiseSVN  AnkhSVN and probably many other subversion clients by right clicking on a log entry and then  change log message

User · Answer

I found a nice implementation of the server side pre-rev-prop-change hook at the svnforum  https   www svnforum org forum opensource-subversion-forums scripts-contributions 8571-pre-revprop-change-shell-script-allows-commiters-to-change-own-log-within-x-hours  It implements    user checking  that is only own commit messages can be edited   Svn admin override  admin can edit anything  time stamp comparison  only commits that are younger than certain time can be edited   Grab it from there and edit at will  I d rather not copy it here since I am not the original author and there is no copyright notice that would allow me to do it

User · Answer

The Subversion FAQ covers this  but uses a bunch of confusing undefined terms like REPOS PATH without giving any actual examples   It might take a few tries to get it to work  so save your updated commit message in a file  Unlike with svn-commit tmp files  Subversion won   t preserve your typing if there   s a problem   In your working directory  run  svn propedit -r N --revprop svn log  to edit the commit message  If that works  great  But it probably won   t  because the svn log revision property is unversioned and Subversion by default will stop you from overwriting it  either with the hook script pre-revprop-change  or an error message that you don   t have such a hook   To change the hooks  you need access to the filesystem on which the repository is hosted  svn info will tell you the Repository Root  Suppose it   s   svnrepo    cd to   svnrepo hooks Is there a pre-revprop-change or pre-revprop-change bat script  If so  temporarily comment out the part of it that aborts if you try to change svn log  Otherwise  on Windows  create a blank file called pre-revprop-change bat  Here   s one way to do that   copy con pre-revprop-change bat  Z  Otherwise  on Unix  run  echo     bin sh   gt  pre-revprop-change chmod  x pre-revprop-change  In the working copy  run svn propedit -r N --revprop svn log again Undo your changes to   svnrepo hooks svn-revprop-change  bat

User · Answer

svnadmin setlog  path to repository -r revision number --bypass-hooks message file txt

User · Answer

I was recently tasked with this as well   We wanted to allow our programmers to modify only their own commit messages  and restrict how far back they are allowed to do so  We decided they would be allowed to modify any log messages committed that day  to fix typo s etc   After looking at a couple other examples online I hacked this together  we are in a windows environment  so this is our contents of pre-revprop-change bat    ECHO OFF  set repos  1 set rev  2 set user  3 set propname  4 set action  5                                                                            Only allow changes to svn log  The author  date and other revision    properties cannot be changed                                                                        if  I not   propname     svn log  goto ERROR PROPNAME                                                                            Only allow modifications to svn log  no addition overwrite or deletion                                                                         if  I not   action     M  goto ERROR ACTION                                                                            Only allow user to modify their own log messages                                                                        set AUTHOR  for  f  delims     a in   svnlook author -r  REV   REPOS    do  set AUTHOR   a  if  I not   AUTHOR      user   goto ERROR WRONGUSER                                                                            Only allow user to modify log messages from today  old messages locked down                                                                        set DATESTAMP  for  f  delims     a in   svnlook date -r  REV   REPOS    do  set DATESTAMP   a  for  F  tokens 1-2 delims      a in    DATESTAMP    do    set DATESTAMPDATE   a  set DATESTAMPTIME   b       Expects DATESTAMPDATE in the format  2012-02-24 for  F  tokens 1-3 delims -    a in    DATESTAMPDATE    do    set DATESTAMPYEAR   a  set DATESTAMPMONTH   b  set DATESTAMPDAY   c       Expects date in the format  Thu 08 01 2013 for  F  tokens 1-4 delims       a in    date    do    set YEAR   d  set MONTH   b  set DAY   c    if  I not   DATESTAMPYEAR      YEAR   goto ERROR MSGTOOOLD if  I not   DATESTAMPMONTH      MONTH   goto ERROR MSGTOOOLD if  I not   DATESTAMPDAY      DAY   goto ERROR MSGTOOOLD                                                                            Make sure that the new svn log message contains some text                                                                         set bIsEmpty true for  f  tokens      g in   find  V      do    set bIsEmpty false   if   bIsEmpty     true  goto ERROR EMPTY  goto  eof   ERROR EMPTY echo Empty svn log properties are not allowed   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR PROPNAME echo Only changes to svn log revision properties are allowed   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR ACTION echo Only modifications to svn log revision properties are allowed   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR WRONGUSER echo You are not allowed to modify other user s log messages   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR MSGTOOOLD echo You are not allowed to modify log messages older than today   gt  amp 2 goto ERROR EXIT   ERROR EXIT exit  b 1    Edit  Original idea for this came from this thread

User · Answer

On Windows  using Tortoise SVN client    right click in your project folder and choose  Show log  in the Log Messages window  right click on a revision and choose  Edit log message    If it doesn t work it might because of the way SVN on server is setup  read other responses here

User · Answer

If your repository enables setting revision properties via the pre-revprop-change hook you can change log messages much easier   svn propedit --revprop -r 1234 svn log url   to repository   Or in TortoiseSVN  AnkhSVN and probably many other subversion clients by right clicking on a log entry and then  change log message

User · Answer

If you are using an IDE like eclipse  you can use this easy way   Right click on the project - gt  Team - Show history   In that right click on the revision id for your commit and select  Set commit properties    You can modify the message as you want from here

User · Answer

The Subversion FAQ covers this  but uses a bunch of confusing undefined terms like REPOS PATH without giving any actual examples   It might take a few tries to get it to work  so save your updated commit message in a file  Unlike with svn-commit tmp files  Subversion won   t preserve your typing if there   s a problem   In your working directory  run  svn propedit -r N --revprop svn log  to edit the commit message  If that works  great  But it probably won   t  because the svn log revision property is unversioned and Subversion by default will stop you from overwriting it  either with the hook script pre-revprop-change  or an error message that you don   t have such a hook   To change the hooks  you need access to the filesystem on which the repository is hosted  svn info will tell you the Repository Root  Suppose it   s   svnrepo    cd to   svnrepo hooks Is there a pre-revprop-change or pre-revprop-change bat script  If so  temporarily comment out the part of it that aborts if you try to change svn log  Otherwise  on Windows  create a blank file called pre-revprop-change bat  Here   s one way to do that   copy con pre-revprop-change bat  Z  Otherwise  on Unix  run  echo     bin sh   gt  pre-revprop-change chmod  x pre-revprop-change  In the working copy  run svn propedit -r N --revprop svn log again Undo your changes to   svnrepo hooks svn-revprop-change  bat

User · Answer

Here s a handy variation that I don t see mentioned in the faq  You can return the current message for editing by specifying a text editor   svn propedit svn log --revprop -r N --editor-cmd vim

User · Answer

Essentially you have to have admin rights  directly or indirectly  to the repository to do this   You can either configure the repository to allow all users to do this  or you can modify the log message directly on the server    See this part of the Subversion FAQ  emphasis mine       Log messages are kept in the   repository as properties attached to   each revision  By default  the log   message property  svn log  cannot be   edited once it is committed  That is   because changes to revision properties    of which svn log is one  cause the   property s previous value to be   permanently discarded  and Subversion   tries to prevent you from doing this   accidentally  However  there are a   couple of ways to get Subversion to   change a revision property       The first way is for the repository   administrator to enable revision   property modifications  This is done   by creating a hook called    pre-revprop-change   see this section   in the Subversion book for more   details about how to do this   The    pre-revprop-change  hook has access   to the old log message before it is   changed  so it can preserve it in some   way  for example  by sending an   email   Once revision property   modifications are enabled  you can   change a revision s log message by   passing the --revprop switch to svn   propedit or svn propset  like either   one of these    svn propedit -r N --revprop svn log URL   svn propset -r N --revprop svn log  new log message  URL        where N   is the revision number whose log   message you wish to change  and URL is   the location of the repository  If you   run this command from within a working   copy  you can leave off the URL       The second way of changing a log   message is to use svnadmin setlog    This must be done by referring to the   repository s location on the   filesystem  You cannot modify a remote   repository using this command     svnadmin setlog REPOS PATH -r N FILE       where REPOS PATH is the repository   location  N is the revision number   whose log message you wish to change    and FILE is a file containing the new   log message  If the    pre-revprop-change  hook is not in   place  or you want to bypass the hook   script for some reason   you can also   use the --bypass-hooks option    However  if you decide to use this   option  be very careful  You may be   bypassing such things as email   notifications of the change  or backup   systems that keep track of revision   properties

User · Answer

If your repository enables setting revision properties via the pre-revprop-change hook you can change log messages much easier   svn propedit --revprop -r 1234 svn log url   to repository   Or in TortoiseSVN  AnkhSVN and probably many other subversion clients by right clicking on a log entry and then  change log message

User · Answer

Essentially you have to have admin rights  directly or indirectly  to the repository to do this   You can either configure the repository to allow all users to do this  or you can modify the log message directly on the server    See this part of the Subversion FAQ  emphasis mine       Log messages are kept in the   repository as properties attached to   each revision  By default  the log   message property  svn log  cannot be   edited once it is committed  That is   because changes to revision properties    of which svn log is one  cause the   property s previous value to be   permanently discarded  and Subversion   tries to prevent you from doing this   accidentally  However  there are a   couple of ways to get Subversion to   change a revision property       The first way is for the repository   administrator to enable revision   property modifications  This is done   by creating a hook called    pre-revprop-change   see this section   in the Subversion book for more   details about how to do this   The    pre-revprop-change  hook has access   to the old log message before it is   changed  so it can preserve it in some   way  for example  by sending an   email   Once revision property   modifications are enabled  you can   change a revision s log message by   passing the --revprop switch to svn   propedit or svn propset  like either   one of these    svn propedit -r N --revprop svn log URL   svn propset -r N --revprop svn log  new log message  URL        where N   is the revision number whose log   message you wish to change  and URL is   the location of the repository  If you   run this command from within a working   copy  you can leave off the URL       The second way of changing a log   message is to use svnadmin setlog    This must be done by referring to the   repository s location on the   filesystem  You cannot modify a remote   repository using this command     svnadmin setlog REPOS PATH -r N FILE       where REPOS PATH is the repository   location  N is the revision number   whose log message you wish to change    and FILE is a file containing the new   log message  If the    pre-revprop-change  hook is not in   place  or you want to bypass the hook   script for some reason   you can also   use the --bypass-hooks option    However  if you decide to use this   option  be very careful  You may be   bypassing such things as email   notifications of the change  or backup   systems that keep track of revision   properties

User · Answer

I found a nice implementation of the server side pre-rev-prop-change hook at the svnforum  https   www svnforum org forum opensource-subversion-forums scripts-contributions 8571-pre-revprop-change-shell-script-allows-commiters-to-change-own-log-within-x-hours  It implements    user checking  that is only own commit messages can be edited   Svn admin override  admin can edit anything  time stamp comparison  only commits that are younger than certain time can be edited   Grab it from there and edit at will  I d rather not copy it here since I am not the original author and there is no copyright notice that would allow me to do it

[svn] How to edit log message already committed in Subversion?

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