How to rename a file using svn?

Question

When I try svn mv old_file_name new_file_name, I get

 svn: Path \'new_file_name\' is not a directory

What\'s the correct way?

Answer 1

Using TortoiseSVN worked easily on Windows for me.

http://tortoisesvn.net/

Right click file -> TortoiseSVN menu -> Repo-browser -> right click file in repository -> rename -> press Enter -> click Ok

Using SVN 1.8.8 TortoiseSVN version 1.8.5

Answer 2

The behaviour differs depending on whether the target file name already exists or not. It's usually a safety mechanism, and there are at least 3 different cases:

Target file does not exist:

In this case svn mv should work as follows:

$ svn mv old_file_name new_file_name
A         new_file_name
D         old_file_name
$ svn stat
A  +    new_file_name
        > moved from old_file_name
D       old_file_name
        > moved to new_file_name
$ svn commit
Adding     new_file_name
Deleting   old_file_name
Committing transaction...

Target file already exists in repository:

In this case, the target file needs to be removed explicitly, before the source file can be renamed. This can be done in the same transaction as follows:

$ svn mv old_file_name new_file_name 
svn: E155010: Path 'new_file_name' is not a directory
$ svn rm new_file_name 
D         new_file_name
$ svn mv old_file_name new_file_name 
A         new_file_name
D         old_file_name
$ svn stat
R  +    new_file_name
        > moved from old_file_name
D       old_file_name
        > moved to new_file_name
$ svn commit
Replacing      new_file_name
Deleting       old_file_name
Committing transaction...

In the output of svn stat, the R indicates that the file has been replaced, and that the file has a history.

Target file already exists locally (unversioned):

In this case, the content of the local file would be lost. If that's okay, then the file can be removed locally before renaming the existing file.

$ svn mv old_file_name new_file_name 
svn: E155010: Path 'new_file_name' is not a directory
$ rm new_file_name 
$ svn mv old_file_name new_file_name 
A         new_file_name
D         old_file_name
$ svn stat
A  +    new_file_name
        > moved from old_file_name
D       old_file_name
        > moved to new_file_name
$ svn commit
Adding         new_file_name
Deleting       old_file_name
Committing transaction...

Answer 3

It can be if you created new directory at the disk BEFORE create/commit it in the SVN. All that you need is just create it in SVN and do move after:

$ svn mv etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/cs/us0101ccs001.cfg etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs/
svn: E155010: Path '/home/dyr/svn/nagioscore/etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs' is not a directory

$ svn status
?       etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs

$ rm -rvf etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs
removed directory 'etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs'

$ svn mkdir etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs
A         etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs

$ svn move etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/cs/us0101ccs001.cfg etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs/us0101accs001.cfg
A         etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs/us0101accs001.cfg
D         etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/cs/us0101ccs001.cfg

$ svn status
A       etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs
A  +    etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs/us0101accs001.cfg
        > moved from etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/cs/us0101ccs001.cfg
D       etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/cs/us0101ccs001.cfg
        > moved to etc/nagios/hosts/us0101/ccs/us0101accs001.cfg

Answer 4

This message will appear if you are using a case-insensitive file system (e.g. on a Mac) and you're trying to capitalize the name (or another change of case). In which case you need to rename to a third, dummy, name:

svn mv file-name file-name_
svn mv file-name_ FILE_Name
svn commit

Answer 5

You can do it by following 3 steps:

 - svn rm old_file_name
 - svn add new_file_name
 - svn commit