There is one old project in my local svn repository and yesterday I added a new project using 'svn import'. While the book recommends adding the subdirectories trunk/, branches/, and tags/ to a project's root directory I could not find how to do this.

Two questions:

1) Can I use admin tools to retroactively add the subdirectories to the old project? If so, what is the correct syntax to add them and put existing files in the trunk/ subdirectory?

2) How do I initially set up the project directory structure while adding a new project to the repository?

The answers are "No" and "Use the svnadmin tools."

Despite my reading Chapter 5 of the svn-1.7 doc multiple times the process was not clearly apparent. However, a helpful subscriber to the subversion mail list pointed me to the solution which follows.

1. Use 'svnadmin create /path/to/my/repository/' to create the repository itself. In my case, I had to delete the original repository and the associated .svn file since they had been created with a subversion less than 1.2.

2. Create project root directories using 'svn mkdir project-name /path/to/my/repository/'.

3. Under each project root directory create branches/, tags/, and trunk/ as above. When I tried to create the subdirectories prior to the root directory, by using the --parent option to mkdir my original source directores were removed. Had to restore them from the backup drive. (You do make daily, incremental backups, don't you?)

4. Now the repository and its directory structure are in place, use 'svn import /path/to/my/repository/project' from the source directory. Add a log comment with the -m option.

5. Remove, or backup with a different name, your original source directory. Then use 'svn checkout /path/to/my/repository/project/trunk/' to produce the working copy in your preferred location. I use the original, empty, source directories for this and they now have a trunk/ subdirectory.