Revision Dates
Revision numbers reveal nothing about the world outside the version
control system, but sometimes you need to correlate a moment in real
time with a moment in version history. To facilitate this, the
--revision (-r) option can also accept
as input date specifiers wrapped in curly braces ({ and }).
Subversion accepts the standard ISO-8601 date and time formats, plus a few others. Here are some examples.
(Remember to use quotes around any date that contains spaces.)
$ svn checkout -r {2006-02-17}
$ svn checkout -r {15:30}
$ svn checkout -r {15:30:00.200000}
$ svn checkout -r {"2006-02-17 15:30"}
$ svn checkout -r {"2006-02-17 15:30 +0230"}
$ svn checkout -r {2006-02-17T15:30}
$ svn checkout -r {2006-02-17T15:30Z}
$ svn checkout -r {2006-02-17T15:30-04:00}
$ svn checkout -r {20060217T1530}
$ svn checkout -r {20060217T1530Z}
$ svn checkout -r {20060217T1530-0500}
...
When you specify a date, Subversion resolves that date to the most recent revision of the repository as of that date, and then continues to operate against that resolved revision number:
$ svn log -r {2006-11-28}
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r12 | ira | 2006-11-27 12:31:51 -0600 (Mon, 27 Nov 2006) | 6 lines
...
You can also use a range of dates. Subversion will find all revisions between both dates, inclusive:
$ svn log -r {2006-11-20}:{2006-11-29}
...
Warning
Since the timestamp of a revision is stored as an unversioned, modifiable property of the revision (see Properties), revision timestamps can be changed to represent complete falsifications of true chronology, and can even be removed altogether. Subversion’s ability to correctly convert revision dates into real revision numbers depends on revision datestamps maintaining a sequential ordering—the younger the revision, the younger its timestamp. If this ordering isn’t maintained, you will likely find that trying to use dates to specify revision ranges in your repository doesn’t always return the data you might have expected.