Recreate subversion repository from svn client checkout

Question

My first question here.

The subversion repository was deleted but there exists a checkout made from that repository. How would I go about rebuilding the repository from the checkout?

Answer 1

You could svn export that checkout to a new location, and then add it all to a new repository. But you cannot get the history back.

Answer 2

Unlike Git, Subversion does not store the entire repository on each machine. What you have is a working folder that is up to date for a certain revision of that repository.

As @marcc suggested, the best thing to do is to create new repository from the existing working folder.

If you use TortoiseSVN, though, you may be able to recover some of the commit log messages. Newer versions of TortosieSVN maintain a log cache, and if you are unable to connect to the repository you will still be able to browse the offline cache. Cut and paste that info (or take a screen shot) for historical purposes, but it will not do much good since you can no longer revert to those revisions anyway.