Configuring Subversion

After you install subversion you should put CNMAT's long list of "global-ignores" in your .subversion/config file

Why?

Subversion can be configured to "ignore" certain files, which mainly means not to try to check them into the repository if they appear in a folder. You mainly need this for files that are created by the build process, which don't belong in the repository. By default Subversion comes configured with a pretty conservative list of these files; I've added quite a few.

How?

This configuration goes into a line in the file "config" inside the ".subversion" subdirectory of your home directory (at least on OSX and Linux). So open .subversion/config in a text editor. Note that the hiddenness of your .subversion directory means that you can't see it from the MacOS finder. If you're not comfortable with any of the terminal-based Unix text editors, do this:

  • In a Terminal window, say open ~/.subversion
  • A finder window will open; drag the file "config" to your favorite GUI text editor.

Once you're looking at the contents of .subversion/config, search for the text "global-ignores" and replace that line of your file with the following. Note that this has to be a single long line, and that it should not begin with a number sign ("#") character.


global-ignores = *.o *.lo *.la #*# .*.rej *.rej .*~ *~ .#* .DS_Store build-mac build-classic build-gcc sysbuild *Data *.macyucky version.h version.c *.sit svn-commit* *.mode1 *.pbxuser build pathdef.m* *.class *objinfo.txt *-info.txt files-to-exclude.txt *.tar.gz *.zip *.def *.mxo

Note that one of the filename patterns Subversion will ignore is "*~", i.e., any file whose name ends in tilde. This is here because of the Emacs text editor, which creates lots of temporary files with names like foo.c~. The tilde used to be a common last character in names of MSP patches, before we started having to always use a suffix like .pat or .mxb.

Setting your default Unix text editor

Why?

When you "commit" files to the SVN repository you have to supply a [http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/svn-book.html#svn-ch-3-sect-5.5|descriptive log message] explaining what you changed and why. These messages are extremely useful later on when you or someone else tries to make sense of the history of changes of a file. If you'll always use a graphical front-end to SVN then it will give you a dialog box for typing in the log message and you don't have to configure anything.

The command-line Subversion client kindly opens your favorite Unix text editor to a file listing all the files you're about to commit. By default you get the [w:Vi|vi] text editor on OSX. But maybe you're in the vast majority of computer users who prefer not to use vi.

How?

You can change the Unix shell's idea of your favorite text editor by [http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=31442&seqNum=3&rl=1|setting the shell variable] EDITOR or VISUAL to the full path to your chosen editor, e.g., /usr/bin/emacs or /usr/bin/nano

If you're not a Terminal-oriented person then we recommend that you download and install the free [http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler|TextWrangler text editor]. As part of the installation process, choose the "Install Command Line Tools" option. This should create the file /usr/bin/edit on your computer. You need to invoke it with the "-w" option (meaning "wait until I close the window before telling the shell that I've finished running the editor). So set your EDITOR and/or VISUAL shell variables to "/usr/bin/edit -w"

If you use BBedit (which has more features than TextWrangler but costs money), it also can be run from the command line. Set your EDITOR and/or VISUAL shell variables to "/usr/bin/bbedit -w"