Deleting an SVN branch

Question

I created a branch of an SVN project called 'features', and now whenever I try to update said project, it brings with it a features folder, which contains another copy of the project from the branch.

Is there a way to remove the branch from the repository completely so that this doesn't happen any more?

Solution 1

Sure: svn rm the unwanted folder, and commit.

To avoid this situation in the future, I would follow the recommended layout for SVN projects:

• Put your code in the /someproject/trunk folder (or just /trunk if you want to put only one project in the repository)
• Created branches as /someproject/branches/somebranch
• Put tags under /someproject/tags

Now when you check out a working copy, be sure to check out only trunk or some individual branch. Don't check everything out in one huge working copy containing all branches.¹

¹_{Unless you know what you're doing, in which case you know how to create shallow working copies.}

Solution 2

For those using TortoiseSVN, you can accomplish this by using the Repository Browser (it's labeled "Repo-browser" in the context menu.)

Find the branch folder you want to delete, right-click it, and select "Delete."

Enter your commit message, and you're done.

Solution 3

Assuming this branch isn't an external or a symlink, removing the branch should be as simple as:

svn rm branches/< mybranch >

svn ci -m "message"

If you'd like to do this in the repository then update to remove it from your working copy you can do something like:

svn rm http://< myurl >/< myrepo >/branches/< mybranch >

Then run:

svn update

Solution 4

You can also delete the branch on the remote directly. Having done that, the next update will remove it from your working copy.

svn rm "^/reponame/branches/name_of_branch" -m "cleaning up old branch name_of_branch"

The ^ is short for the URL of the remote, as seen in 'svn info'. The double quotes are necessary on Windows command line, because ^ is a special character.

This command will also work if you have never checked out the branch.

Solution 5

Command to delete a branch is as follows:

svn delete -m "<your message>" <branch url>

If you wish to not fetch/checkout the entire repo, execute the following command on your terminal:

1) get the absolute path of the directory that will contain your working copy
> pwd
2) Start svn code checkout
> svn checkout <branch url> <absolute path from point 1>

The above steps will get you the files inside the branch folder and not the entire folder.

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