SVN: Ignore some directories recursively

Question

I don't want any directory named build or dist to go into my SVN no matter how deep in the tree it is.

Is this possible? In git I just put

build
dist

in my .gitignore at the root and it recursively ignores. How do I do this with svn? Please don't tell me to do a propset on every parent dir...

Answer 1

As of subversion 1.8, there is now the svn:global-ignores property which works like svn:ignore but recursively (so set this on your top-level directory)

Answer 2

svn propset takes --recursive as an option, so you can do this, with two downsides:

1. you have to check out the entire repository (or at least all directories therein), and
2. you have to remember to set the svn:ignore property whenever you add a new directory