2

I'm using SVN for several projects that contain large binary files which are needed by the project but will never be modified (or they'll be modified on very rare occasions and I don't need to track their changes anyway).

As they're part of the project, I'd like to keep them "linked" to the project so that they would be retrieved when performing a checkout (or update if they're missing), along with all versioned files. But I don't need (and don't want) to have them versioned by SVN to save some space in the repo and avoid unwanted data duplication if someone modify/commit them by mistake.

Right now I'm using svn:externals on another repository (read-only), but something like svn:externals allowing links to non-SVN sources like an FTP folder would be even better.

Do you know any SVN trick or convenient tool that could help? Thanks!

r3c
  • 498
  • 3
  • 8
  • Save for saving a symlink in SVN & having the files on a server already there isn't really an out of the box svn-only solution I think. Symlinks & externals are as far as it goes AFAIK. – Wrikken Jul 17 '11 at 20:51
  • Sorry, I forgot to say some users work with Windows, so symlinks cannot be used (and Windows shortcuts do not survive versioning). Adding a "windows" tag to the question. – r3c Jul 17 '11 at 21:09
  • 2
    OK, than it's either:(1) keep on using the externals (2) store them once as binaries in the tree, possible add a pre-commit hook to prevent storing alterations in them, or (3) set custom svn properties on files or directories, and search for them with a custom script which then places the correct files on the location. (3) isn't all that hard, but does require a separate action after checkout / export / possibly update. – Wrikken Jul 17 '11 at 21:24

1 Answers1

2

Why not put them in the repository anyway, the benefits of having them 'linked' seems to outweigh the slight danger of someone modifying and re-committing them. I found this question relating to how good svn is at storing large binary files:

How good is Subversion at storing lots of binary files?

Community
  • 1
  • 1
iandotkelly
  • 9,024
  • 8
  • 48
  • 67