Try to svn checkout, but get: svn: '.' is already a working copy for a different URL

Question

I'm trying to svn checkout into my public_html folder, but I get this error: svn: '.' is already a working copy for a different URL

My brother already set up a boiler plate site for me, but I've changed it and put those changes into a repo of my own. How do I make this folder not be a working copy of the repo he set up originally?

Can I delete the public_html folder and make a new one? I'm fine with starting from scratch, as I'm going to just checkout an already installed drupal site onto this site.

I saw in another question that a solution may be to simply delete the .svn directory. I tried this, but it said permission denied for several subdirectories in .svn.

Thanks in advance for ANY help, hope this question isn't too dumb...

Answer 1

This sequence of commands should do it if you're in a hurry.

There's gotta be a way to update the working copy's reference url, but I don't know it off-hand.

$ svn diff > ../changes.patch
$ rm -rf * ..?*
$ svn checkout url
$ patch -p < ../changes.patch

Answer 2

You could try "svn switch". In the example at http:// svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch04s05.html, it's as easy as:

 $ svn switch http:// svn.example.com/repos/calc/branches/my-calc-branch

But since you have subdirectory permissions issues, your plan to re-create public_html sounds like the best solution; just beware of typos with 'rm'. Try 'mv' to just move the old directory out of the way, which doesn't depend on subdirectory permissions.

You can use:

 $ mv public_html old_public_html
 $ mkdir public_html
 $ chmod 755 public_html
 $ cd public_html
 $ svn checkout url

Answer 3

If you don't need a connection with your brother's repo, then just remove all his .svn dirs.

The permission issue is not related to SVN, definitely.

Answer 4

I think that the best option in your case is to delete the folder and create it again doing the checkout from SVN

Answer 5

I saw in another question that a solution may be to simply delete the .svn directory. I tried this, but it said permission denied for several subdirectories in .svn.

Even when you can not delete directories you may move them away:

$ mv .svn /tmp/dustbin

edit:

You should have write access at least to your home directory:

$ mv ~/public_html /tmp/dustbin
$ mkdir ~/public_html

Answer 6

I ran into this error ("... is already a working copy for a different URL") just now in Eclipse 3.5. I was trying to check out a particular branch of a project from the Eclipse "SVN Repository Exploring" perspective (the Subclipse subversion client adapter from tigris.org). I had drilled into [project] | branches | [branch] that I was interested in, then did right-click on the branch that I was interested in and selected Checkout; this led to the error.

For me, the fix was to instead go to the "Java EE" perspective, right-click on my project, and select Replace With | Branch/Tag... from the context menu. Doing this, I was successfully able download the branch I was interested in.

Answer 7

I've found that if I simply go to the J2EE perspective, right click on the project, and select Delete before I attempt to checkout a new branch, it solves this problem.