What's the benefits of “svn:externals”?

Question

I would not get to know svn:externals if I haven\'t run into the this page. So, I setup my working folder. Then

mkdir lib/vendor
svn add --parents lib/vendo         


        

Answer 1

The way you use externals is for people who want to work on the head revision of some code, for example if you are on an internal project where all kinds of libraries and applications are co-developed. Usually, you should not do this without good reason, because a code revision in an external might break your code - and if you have no right to fix the external, then working with it becomes a bit cumbersome.

You can either fetch a specific revision of the external repository into a so called vendor branch of your own repo, or add a revision argument switch to your externals definition, like explained here for example:

http://thinkinging.com/2008/10/21/set-the-revision-of-your-svnexternals-or-else/