Checkout one file from Subversion

Question

It is not possible to check out a single file  The finest level of checkouts you can do is at the directory level    How do I get around this issue when using Subversion   We have this folder in Subversion where we keep all our images  I just want to check out one file  image  from that  This folder is really big and has ton of other stuff which I don t need now

User · Answer

This issue is covered by   http   subversion tigris org issues show bug cgi id 823  There is a script attached that lets you check out a single file from svn  make changes  and commit the changes back to the repository  but you can t run  svn up  to checkout the rest of the directory   It s been tested with svn-1 3  1 4 and 1 6

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An update in case what you really need can be covered by having the file included in a checkout of another folder   Since SVN 1 6 you can make file externals  a kind of svn links  It means that you can have another versioned folder that includes a single file  Committing changes to the file in a checkout of this folder is also possible   It s very simple  checkout the folder you want to include the file  and simply add a property to the folder  svn propedit svn externals     with content like this   file txt  repos path to file txt   After you commit this  the file will appear in future checkouts of the folder  Basically it works  but there are some limitations as described in the documentation linked above

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Since none of the other answers worked for me I did it using this hack     cd  yourfolder svn co https   path-to-folder-which-has-your-files  --depth files   This will create a new local folder which has only the files from the remote path  Then you can do a symbolic link to the files you want to have here

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Go to the repo-browser right-click the file and use  Save As   I m using TortoiseSVN though

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Use svn cat or svn export   For that  you don t need to fetch the working directory  but you will not be able to commit any changes you make  If you need to make changes and commit them  you need a working directory  but you don t have to fetch it completely  Checkout the revision where the directory was still almost empty  and then use  svn cat  to extract the file from HEAD

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A TortoiseSVN equivalent solution of the accepted answer  I had written this in an internal document for my company as we are newly adopting SVN  follows  I thought it would be helpful to share here as well   Checking out a single file  Subversion does not support checkout of a single file  it only supports checkout of directory structures   Reference  http   subversion tigris org faq html single-file-checkout   This is because with every directory that is checked out as a working copy  the metadata regarding modifications file revisions is stored as an internal hidden folder   svn  svn   This is not supported currently  v1 6  for single files   Alternate recommended strategy  You will have to do the checkout directory part only once  following that you can directly go and checkout your single files  Do a sparse checkout of the parent folder and directory structure  A sparse checkout is basically checking out only the folder structure without populating the content files  So you checkout only the directory structures and need not checkout ALL the files as was the concern  Reference  http   tortoisesvn net docs release TortoiseSVN en tsvn-dug-checkout html  Step 1  Proceed to repository browser  Step 2  Right click the parent folder within the repository containing all the files that you wish to work on and Select Checkout   Step 3  Within new popup window  ensure that the checkout directory points to the correct location on your local PC  There will also be a dropdown menu labeled    checkout depth     Choose    Only this item    or    Immediate children  including folders    depending on your requirement  Second option is recommended as  if you want to work on nested folder  you can directly proceed the next time otherwise you will have to follow this whole procedure again for the nested folder   Step 4  The parent folder s  should now be available within your locally chosen folder and is now being monitored with SVN  a hidden folder     svn    or     svn    should now be present   Within the repository now  right click the single file that you wish to have checked out alone and select the    Update Item to revision    option  The single file can now be worked on and checked back into the repository   I hope this helps

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If you want to view readme txt in your   repository without checking it out         svn cat   http   svn red-bean com repos test readme txt   This is a README file  You should read   this       Tip    If your working copy is out of date    or you have local modifications  and   you want to see the HEAD revision of a   file in your working copy  svn cat   will automatically fetch the HEAD   revision when you give it a path         cat foo c   This file is in my local   working copy  and has changes that   I ve made         svn cat foo c   Latest revision fresh   from the repository    Source

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cd C  path dir svn checkout https   server path to trunk dir dir parent dir--depth empty cd C  path dir parent dir svn update filename log    Edit filename log   svn commit -m  this is a comment

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You can do it in two steps    Checkout an empty SVN repository with meta information only     cd  tmp    svn co --depth empty http   svn your company ca training trunk sql  Run svn up to update specified file     svn up http   svn your company ca training trunk sql showSID sql

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If you just want to export the file  and you won t need to update it later  you can do it without having to use SVN commands   Using TortoiseSVN Repository Browser  select the file  right click  and then select  Copy URL to clipboard   Paste that URL to your browser  and after login you should be prompted with the file download   This way you can also select desired revision and download an older version of the file   Note that this is valid if your SVN server has a web interface

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The simple answer is that you svn export the file instead of checking it out   But that might not be what you want  You might want to work on the file and check it back in  without having to download GB of junk you don t need   If you have Subversion 1 5   then do a sparse checkout   svn checkout  lt url of big dir gt   lt target gt  --depth empty cd  lt target gt  svn up  lt file you want gt    For an older version of SVN  you might benefit from the following    Checkout the directory using a revision back in the distant past  when it was less full of junk you don t need  Update the file you want  to create a mixed revision  This works even if the file didn t exist in the revision you checked out  Profit    An alternative  for instance if the directory has too much junk right from the revision in which it was created  is to do a URL- URL copy of the file you want into a new place in the repository  effectively this is a working branch of the file   Check out that directory and do your modifications   I m not sure whether you can then merge your modified copy back entirely in the repository without a working copy of the target - I ve never needed to  If so then do that   If not then unfortunately you may have to find someone else who does have the whole directory checked out and get them to do it  Or maybe by the time you ve made your modifications  the rest of it will have finished downloading

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Using the sparse check out technique  you CAN check out a particular file that is already checked out or exists   with a simple trick   After checkout of the top level of your repository using the  this item only  option  in Windows explorer  you MUST first right-click on the file you need to update  choose Repo Browser in context menu  find that file AGAIN in repository browser  and right-click  You should now see the  update item to revision  in context menu   I m not sure whether it is an undocumented feature or simply a bug  It took me an extended after-work hours to finally find this trick  I m using TortoiseSVN 1 6 2

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Try svn export instead of svn checkout  That works for single files   The reason for the limitation is that checkout creates a working copy  that contains meta-information about repository  revision  attributes  etc  That metadata is stored in subdirectories named   svn   And single files don t have subdirectories

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If you just want a file without revision information use  svn export  lt URL gt

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Steve Jessop s answer did not work for me  I read the help files for SVN and if you just have an image you probably don t want to check it in again unless you re doing Photoshop  so export is a better command than checkout as it s unversioned  but that is minor     And the --depth ARG should not be empty but files to get the files in the immediate directory  So you ll get all the fields  not just the one  but empty returns nothing from the repository     svn co --depth files  lt source gt   lt local dest gt    or  svn export --depth files  lt source gt   lt local dest gt    As for the other answers  cat lets you read the content which is good only for text  not images of all things

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I wanted to checkout a single file to a directory  which was not part of a working copy   Let s get the file at the following URL  http   subversion repository server repository module directory myfile  svn co  http   subversion repository server repository module directory myfile    directoryb     So I checked out the given directory containing the target file I wanted to get to a dummy directory   say etcb for the URL ending with  etc    Then I emptied the file  svn entries from all files of the target directory I didn t needed  to leave just the file I wanted  In this  svn entries file  you have a record for each file with its attributes so leave just the record concerning the file you want to get and save   Now you need just to copy then    svn   to the directory which will be a new  working copy   Then you just need to   cp  svn  directory cd  directory svn update myfile   Now the directory directory is under version control  Do not forget to remove the directory directoryb which was just a   temporary working copy

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With Subversion 1 5  it becomes possible to check out  all  the files of a directory without checking out any subdirectories  the various --depth flags   Not quite what you asked for  but a form of  less than all

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cd C  path dir svn checkout https   server path to trunk dir dir parent dir--depth empty cd C  path dir parent dir svn update filename log    Edit filename log   svn commit -m  this is a comment

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Do something like this   mkdir  lt your directory gt  repos test  svn cat http   svn red-bean com repos test readme txt  gt   lt your directory gt  repos test readme txt   Basically the idea is create the directory where you want to grab the file from SVN  Use the svn cat command and redirect the output to the same named file  By default  the cat will dump information on stdio

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I d just browse it and export the single file  If you have HTTP access  just use the web browser to find the file and grab it    If you need to get it back in after editing it  that might be slightly more tedious  but I m sure there might be an svn import function

[svn] Checkout one file from Subversion

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