Tortoise SVN hidden _svn folders

Question

They are specially annoying when I need to upload to the server a web solution.

Is there a way of configuring SVN to create the _svn folders outside my working directory? If not, what is the best way to deal with them when you need to copy only the code?

Update: Using "svn export" command is problematic because there are files that are not under source control but necessary like .dll's, xml data files or database files and they will not be exported. Therefore it would be required to manually copy them in there different subdirectories from the working copy each time.

Answer 1

It's not (currently) possible to configure SVN (or TortoiseSVN) to create the .svn (or _svn) directories outside the working copy. I believe that the SVN 1.6 roadmap includes revisiting the working-copy library. The ability to put the administrative directories somewhere else might come out of this work, but I'm speculating.

You should use the "svn export" command to create a "clean" copy of your working copy (i.e. without the _svn directories). This works from the command line client.

If you're using TortoiseSVN, you can right-click on the working copy, and choose "Export...". This will ask you for a folder to export the files to. Alternatively, you can right-drag a working copy to a folder (one that's not a working copy), and TortoiseSVN will bring up a context menu; among the options are "SVN Export to here" and "SVN Export all to here", the latter also exporting files not under version control.