Examining the Details of Historical Changes
We’ve already seen svn diff before—it displays file differences in unified diff format. We used it to show the local modifications made to our working copy before committing to the repository.
In fact, it turns out that there are three distinct uses of svn diff:
Examining local changes
Comparing your working copy to the repository
Comparing repository revisions
Examining local changes
As we’ve seen, invoking svn diff with no
options will compare your working files to the cached
“pristine” copies in the .svn area:
$ svn diff Index: rules.txt =================================================================== --- rules.txt (revision 3) +++ rules.txt (working copy) @@ -1,4 +1,5 @@ Be kind to others Freedom = Responsibility Everything in moderation -Chew with your mouth open +Chew with your mouth closed +Listen when others are speaking $
Comparing working copy to repository
If a single --revision (-r)
number is passed, your working copy is compared to the
specified revision in the repository:
$ svn diff -r 3 rules.txt Index: rules.txt =================================================================== --- rules.txt (revision 3) +++ rules.txt (working copy) @@ -1,4 +1,5 @@ Be kind to others Freedom = Responsibility Everything in moderation -Chew with your mouth open +Chew with your mouth closed +Listen when others are speaking $
Comparing repository revisions
If two revision numbers, separated by a colon, are passed via
--revision (-r), the two revisions
are directly compared:
$ svn diff -r 2:3 rules.txt Index: rules.txt =================================================================== --- rules.txt (revision 2) +++ rules.txt (revision 3) @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ Be kind to others -Freedom = Chocolate Ice Cream +Freedom = Responsibility Everything in moderation Chew with your mouth open $
A more convenient way of comparing one revision to the previous
revision is to use the --change (-c)
option:
$ svn diff -c 3 rules.txt Index: rules.txt =================================================================== --- rules.txt (revision 2) +++ rules.txt (revision 3) @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ Be kind to others -Freedom = Chocolate Ice Cream +Freedom = Responsibility Everything in moderation Chew with your mouth open $
Lastly, you can compare repository revisions even when you don’t have a working copy on your local machine, just by including the appropriate URL on the command line:
$ svn diff -c 5 http://svn.example.com/repos/example/trunk/text/rules.txt ... $