Fri, 7 May 2010 07:07:41 -0700 (PDT), /tstone-barcard/:
The SVN Book uses a path syntax throughout the narrative that prefixes
a "^". I'm continually baffled by the use of "^" in the svn-book
(http://svnbook.red-bean.com) because I cannot get it to work.
What is this shortcut? When does it work? Does it need to be set?
I've tried using it, but it never works (v1.6.3).
I've used other "path shortcuts" like environment variables, but would
love to understand just what the authors are trying to demonstrate in
the book.
The caret (^) notation works only inside a working copy
<http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.basic.in-action.html#svn.advanced.reposurls>:
In Subversion 1.6, a new caret (^) notation was introduced as a
shorthand for “the URL of the repository's root directory”. For example:
$ svn list ^/tags/bigsandwich/
In this example, we're specifying a URL for the /tags/bigsandwich
directory in the root of the repository. Note that this URL syntax
only works when your current working directory is a working copy—the
commandline client knows the repository's root URL by looking at the
working copy's metadata.
You didn't state what OS you're on but on Windows you have to use ^^ as
^ is a special command-line character - it is the escape character, e.g.
you would need to use:
D:\...>svn merge ^^/branches/foo
On Windows you could also use double quotes around:
D:\...>svn merge "^/branches/foo"
--
Stanimir
