Why does 'svn ignore' not ignore?

Question

I'm trying to add a Linux kernel to an SVN tree, which has a .git subdirectory - which I don't want to add.

Can anyone explain this behaviour - why does it NOT ignore the .git directory?

test2$ mkdir -p a/.git/blah
test2$ ls
a
test2$ svn propset svn:ignore .git .
property 'svn:ignore' set on '.'
test2$ svn propset -R svn:ignore .git .
property 'svn:ignore' set (recursively) on '.'
test2$ svn add a
A         a
A         a/.git
A         a/.git/blah

Answer 1

The svn:ignore property on a directory lists the names in the current directory that will be ignored. You have set the svn:ignore property on your current directory to .git, but that does not apply to the subdirectory a. What you can do is first add a non-recursively:

svn add -N a
svn ci -m "add a directory"

Then set the svn:ignore property:

svn propset svn:ignore .git a

and then add your tree:

svn add a

This should ignore the a/.git directory.

Answer 2

The first svn propset sets the svn:ignore property on the parent directory of a.

The second svn propset does nothing, because a is not under SVN management yet.

Answer 3

The svn:ignore property is for ignoring files in already added directories.

For avoiding the import of files (or directories), you should use the global-ignores-feature, which is configurable in file ~/.svn/config (UNIX) or %APPDATA%\Subversion\config (Windows) in the [miscellany] section.

Activate it by removing the # in front of the line:

global-ignores = .git