One SVN repository or many?

Question

If you have multiple, unrelated projects, is it a good idea to put them in the same repository?

myRepo/projectA/trunk
myRepo/projectA/tags
myRepo/projectA/br         


        

Answer 1

Similar to Blade's suggestion about sharing files, here is a slightly easier, yet less flexible solution. I setup ours like so:

• /var/svn/
• /var/svn/bin
• /var/svn/repository_files
• /var/svn/svnroot
• /var/svn/svnroot/repos1
• /var/svn/svnroot/repos2
• ...

In "bin", I keep a script called svn-create.sh which will do all of the setup work of creating an empty repository. I also keep the backup script there.

In "repository_files", I keep common "conf" and "hooks" directories that all of the repositories have sym links to. Then, there's only one set of files. This does eliminate the ability to have granular, per-project access without breaking the links, though. That was not a concern where I set this up.

Last, I keep the main directory /var/svn under source control ignoring everything in svnroot. That way the repository files and scripts are under source control as well.

#!/bin/bash

# Usage:
# svn-create.sh repository_name

# This will:
# - create a new repository
# - link the necessary commit scripts
# - setup permissions
# - create and commit the initial directory structure
# - clean up after itself

if [ "empty" = ${1}"empty" ] ; then
  echo "Usage:"
  echo "    ${0} repository_name"
  exit
fi

SVN_HOME=/svn
SVN_ROOT=${SVN_HOME}/svnroot
SVN_COMMON_FILES=${SVN_HOME}/repository_files
NEW_DIR=${SVN_ROOT}/${1}
TMP_DIR=/tmp/${1}_$$

echo "Creating repository: ${1}"

# Create the repository
svnadmin create ${NEW_DIR}

# Copy/Link the hook scripts
cd ${NEW_DIR}
rm -rf hooks
ln -s ${SVN_COMMON_FILES}/hooks hooks

# Setup the user configuration
cd ${NEW_DIR}
rm -rf conf
ln -s ${SVN_COMMON_FILES}/conf conf

# Checkout the newly created project
svn co file://${NEW_DIR} ${TMP_DIR}

# Create the initial directory structure
cd ${TMP_DIR}
mkdir trunk
mkdir tags
mkdir branches

# Schedule the directories addition to the repository
svn add trunk tags branches

# Check in the changes
svn ci -m "Initial Setup"

# Delete the temporary working copy
cd /
rm -rf ${TMP_DIR}

# That's it!
echo "Repository ${1} created. (most likely)"