how to update a single file in SVN

Question

I want to check-out and check-in a single file. I tried the command below but it did not work:

svn checkout <url_of_big_dir> <target> --depth empty

When I tried below command it worked.

svn export <url_of_big_dir> <target>

But I read in some documents it is not proper to use Export when your requirement is to update a file.

How do I update a single file?

Answer 1

Check out the directory, and only the directory (via --depth=empty), that contains the file:

svn checkout <url_of_big_dir> <target> --depth=empty

Next, go into the checked out target and update just the file you want:

cd <target>
svn update <filename>

Here, <filename> is relative to <url_of_big_dir>. From here, you can modify and commit it as normal.

The export command creates an unversioned copy of the file, which means you can't commit it back to the repository. If you don't need to do this, then export is fine and you can do it in one command:

svn export <url_of_big_dir>/<filename>