Working With Subversion and Visual Studio

Venkatesh Kumar
Jul 22, 2012
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Introduction

This article demonstrates how to install and configure the open source version control "Subversion" which we can integrate into and work with in Visual Studio 2008. This article starts with the installation steps of SubVersion. After that is an explanation of how to integrate with Visual Studio and some basic functionalities of SubVersion.

Installation

Steps 1: I have installed the subversion exe "AnkhSvn-2.3.10509.1073" which is installed as a plugin in Visual Studio and for managing the repositories (similar to a work space in TFS).

AnkhSvn DownloadLink

Step 2: After that install the UI tool "TortoiseSVN". TortoiseSVN is an easy-to-use SCM / source control software for Microsoft Windows.

TortoiseSVN Download Link

Step 3: After installiing both, we need to choose the source control as subversion instead of TFS in Visual Studio:

In VS menu -> Tools -> option --> Select SubVersion option

Step 4: There are some differences when compared to TFS; in TFS we first create a workspace but in Subversion first we'll create the repositories by just right-clicking the folder and selecting TortoiseSVN -> Create repository, as shown below:

Step 5: By default, subversion repositories have their own folder structure; first it'll ask you to create that structure:

Step 6: After creating the repositories we need to add our files to it. To add the files right-click the Solution in Visual Studio and choose the options:

Add Solution to Subversion
Add Selected Projects to Subversion

Once the files has been added to the repositories, we can see the files in the attached repositories as shown below:

The check-in/check-out is different from TFS. In Subversion check-in is called "Commit" and the symbols also change; we'll see a green tick for check-in and red tick for check-out.

To get the latest of a specific version, we have the following option as compared to TFS:

Summary

Using "SubVersion" source control has some advantages over TFS and if you try to use it then you will see the differences.