Best Practices
Setup a Repository
The SVN standard layout looks for a single-project repository:
[-] root
+-- [-] branches
| +-- [+] branchA
| +-- [+] branchB
| ...
+-- [-] tags
| +-- [+] tagA
| +-- [+] tagB
| ...
+-- [+] trunk
or for multi-project repositories:
[-] root
+-- [-] project1
| +-- [-] branches
| | +-- [+] branchA
| | +-- [+] branchB
| | ...
| +-- [-] tags
| | +-- [+] tagA
| | +-- [+] tagB
| | ...
| +-- [+] trunk
+-- [-] project2
| +-- [-] branches
| | +-- [+] branchA
| | +-- [+] branchB
| | ...
| +-- [-] tags
| | +-- [+] tagA
| | +-- [+] tagB
| | ...
| +-- [+] trunk
...
Each of the directories branchA, branchB, …, tagA, tagB, …
and trunk contain the full set of project files, not just
sub-directories!
It is very recommended to follow this standard layout.
Checkout a Branch
You should neither checkout the repository root nor the project root
from the repository, but just one of the directories branchA,
branchB, …, tagA, tagB, … or trunk.
The reason is simple: if you would have checked out the whole repository or the whole project, including tags and branches, it would be a complete waste of hard disk space because each of the branches is a more or less different duplicate of the project content. Usually, branches and tags are created often and this would cause your full-repository or full-project working copy to quickly become very large and slow to handle.
After having checked out a branch from a project the first time, you can tell SmartSVN about the directory names for tags, branches by using Tag+Branch | Configure Layout.
Merge Changes
Before merging, it is highly recommended to have a clean working copy (no uncommitted local modifications or untracked files) and all files and directories of the working copy should have the same revision (no mixed-revision working copy).
To merge changes from a branch A to a branch B, first switch your
working copy to the branch B using Modify | Switch (if branch B
already is checked out, then you don’t need to switch, of course). Then
invoke the Merge command (Modify | Merge) and select branch A as
“Merge from”. If you don’t want to merge all changes from the branch A,
but just a few ones, you may select “Revision Range” and select the
commits by clicking the periods-button. You actually pull changes from
the source branch into your current working copy state. If necessary,
fix some conflicts (using the Conflict Solver or Modify | Mark
Resolved) and then commit the changes from the root directory of the
working copy (so the information of what has been merged - which is
stored in the svn:mergeinfo property of the project’s root directory)
is actually committed with the other changes to your current branch B.