SVN ignore not working

Question

I'm trying to make subversion ignore a folder, so I did from the parent folder:

svn propset svn:ignore folder-to-ignore .

but the svn st is still listing the files within that folder with a "?" (not on version control).

I want to ignore the folder itself (which is on version control), as there are always new files inside it.

Any idea how to proceed?

Answer 1

I have struggled with the same problem and learned that the the command must be run in the parent folder and that the ignored directory can not be a sub directory. Assume I have the following structure and wish to ignore virtualenv:

project/
project/.svn/
project/trunk/
project/trunk/virtualenv/

When in the project folder the following will not work as expected:

svn propset svn:ignore trunk/virtualenv .

However the following will work:

cd trunk
svn propset svn:ignore virtualenv .

OR

svn propset svn:ignore virtualenv trunk/

This is actually the expected behaviour, see http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/ch07s02.html and search for ignore information.

Note: If the folder was already tracked you can untrack it with svn remove <FOLDER> --keep-local

Answer 2

If the folder (or a file) is already in version control, it cannot be ignored. But you can ignore all files inside that folder — just set the svn:ignore property on that folder instead:

svn propset svn:ignore "*" folder-to-ignore

The folder itself will still be tracked (and created on a new checkout).