Any idea what this error means in SVN?

Question

Sending example.java Transmitting file data .svn: Commit failed (details follow): svn: 'pre-commit' hook failed with error output: example.java Unwanted TAB in file: example.java

I tried to revert my changes, and then even just adding one extra character, I'll seeing this error. Very strange! Any help would be greatly appreciated O_O

Answer 1

Your SVN server has pre-commit rules which check the validity of your commit (including commit comments). These rules are usual used to enforce things such as including branch numbers in commit comments for traceability purposes. It seems that you are violating a pre-commit rule by having a TAB character in your example.java file. Try removing all TAB characters from example.java and re-committing.

An odd rule I must admit. Kind of taking the spaces vs. tab characters argument to the extreme.....

Answer 2

It sounds like your SVN server does some pre-commit processing that does not allow tab characters in java source files. Try configuring your IDE to replace tabs with spaces.