Macos – How to install older version(1.6.18) svn on MAC

macossvn

The MAC provide the #1.7.10 SVN client, but my project is using #1.6.18 SVN.

So that I received the error message "Working copy is too old (format 10, created by Subversion 1.6)"

Current I CANNOT upgrade my project svn version. So I think the only way for me is re-install the older version SVN. (please kindly advise me if there is better solution)

And my questions are:

  1. Can I use the #1.7 SVN client on #1.6 SVN working copy? IF NO

  2. How can I uninstall older SVN and re-install older version SVN?

Thanks for your help.

Best Answer

There's no problem using version 1.7.10 even if your server is 1.6.8. What you shouldn't do is share working copies between systems. There is no guarantee that one Subversion client will use the same working copy format as another. For example, some Windows clients use _svn directories instead of .svn directories -- especially for VisualStudio development.

For the longest time, most clients used the default Subversion client format that has pretty much remained unchanged until the 1.7 client. In that client, the .svn folders found in each directory were removed to have just a single .svn folder in the root of the directory. This makes the 1.7 command line client working copy incompatible with the earlier formats.

You never explained how your Mac has a 1.6.8 working copy on it. Is it that you have some sort of GUI client on your Mac that is using the older format, or do you have a share that you use on two different systems. If you're doing the latter, don't. Check out a separate working copy on each system.

If you need to share changes between working copy without doing a commit, use the svn diff command to create a patch file. Then use svn patch to apply this patch file to the other working copy.