Subversion: ignore modifications to a file locally on one client only

Question

Is it possible to ignore changes to a file in subversion locally on one client only, without propagating the ignore to the whole repository?

The particular problem I'm dealing with is that I've checked out a project and modified a bunch of files including the Makefile, which is already part of the repository. Now the environment I'm working on is different from the rest of the group, and I want the changes to the Makefiles to remain local on my machine and not be committed.

However, I don't want to set svn:ignore because that I believe would commit the ignore to the repository, while it is important to keep the make file there.

Peter_Parker_23264 · Answer

if you use Subversion 1.5.x or higher you can use changelists:

svn cl COMMIT /path/to/project/*

svn cl NOT_COMMIT /path/to/project/Makefile

Note: with second command Makefile will be removed from first changelist. You can ignore the warning.

Do not commit the second changelist.

do commits via:

svn ci --cl COMMIT -m""

Important: If you commit without --cl option, ALL your changes will be committed

user_89213 · Answer

The closest safe solution I can think of is to use a personal branch.

therefromhere_8331 · Answer

Use svn export to export the file so it's not under version control.

http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/re10.html

edit: However I believe this has to be done on a per-directory basis, so you'd have to reorganise your files somewhat.

I can't test this at the moment, but would a sparse checkout help you here?

http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.advanced.sparsedirs.html

Subversion: ignore modifications to a file locally on one client only

4 Answers