Mercuril, Git and Bazaar has a way to get path root:
git rev-parse --show-toplevel
hg root
bzr root
How print the local root path in subversion?
Update
Example:
> svn checkout https://example.com/svn/foo ~/foo --username fabiocerqueira
> cd ~/foo
> svn root (don't works)
/home/user/project/foo/