svn copy
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Name

svn copy — Copy a file or directory in a working copy or in the repository.

Synopsis

svn copy SRC[@REV]... DST

Description

Copy one or more files in a working copy or in the repository. When copying multiple sources, they will be added as children of DST, which must be a directory. SRC and DST can each be either a working copy (WC) path or URL:

WC → WC

Copy and schedule an item for addition (with history).

WC → URL

Immediately commit a copy of WC to URL.

URL → WC

Check out URL into WC and schedule it for addition.

URL → URL

Complete server-side copy. This is usually used to branch and tag.

When copying multiple sources, they will be added as children of DST, which must be a directory.

If no peg revision (i.e., @REV) is supplied, by default the BASE revision will be used for files copied from the working copy, while the HEAD revision will be used for files copied from a URL.

Note

You can only copy files within a single repository. Subversion does not support cross-repository copying.

Alternate names

cp

Changes

Repository if destination is a URL; working copy if destination is a WC path

Accesses repository

Yes, if source or destination is in the repository, or if needed to look up the source revision number.

Options

--editor-cmd EDITOR
--encoding ENC
--file (-F) FILE
--force-log
--message (-m) TEXT
--parents
--quiet (-q)
--revision (-r) REV
--with-revprop ARG

Examples

Copy an item within your working copy (this schedules the copy—nothing goes into the repository until you commit):

$ svn copy foo.txt bar.txt
A         bar.txt
$ svn status
A  +   bar.txt

Copy several files in a working copy into a subdirectory:

$ svn cp bat.c baz.c qux.c src
A         src/bat.c
A         src/baz.c
A         src/qux.c

Copy revision 8 of bat.c into your working copy under a different name:

$ svn cp -r 8 bat.c ya-old-bat.c
A         ya-old-bat.c

Copy an item in your working copy to a URL in the repository (this is an immediate commit, so you must supply a commit message):

$ svn copy near.txt file:///var/svn/repos/test/far-away.txt -m "Remote copy."

Committed revision 8.

Copy an item from the repository to your working copy (this just schedules the copy—nothing goes into the repository until you commit):

$ svn copy file:///var/svn/repos/test/far-away -r 6 near-here
A         near-here

Tip

This is the recommended way to resurrect a dead file in your repository!

And finally, copy between two URLs:

$ svn copy file:///var/svn/repos/test/far-away \
           file:///var/svn/repos/test/over-there -m "remote copy."

Committed revision 9.

$ svn copy file:///var/svn/repos/test/trunk \
           file:///var/svn/repos/test/tags/0.6.32-prerelease -m "tag tree"

Committed revision 12.

Tip

This is the easiest way to “tag” a revision in your repository—just svn copy that revision (usually HEAD) into your tags directory.

And don't worry if you forgot to tag—you can always specify an older revision and tag anytime:

$ svn copy -r 11 file:///var/svn/repos/test/trunk \
           file:///var/svn/repos/test/tags/0.6.32-prerelease \
           -m "Forgot to tag at rev 11"

Committed revision 13.
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