SVN load ./myNewRepo < ./myOldRepo.dump — Can't open file 'myNewRepo/format'?

Question

I'm trying to migrate an old repository (let's call it myOldRepo) to a new repository (myNewRepo).

I've got an svndump of the old repo, myOldRepo.dump. I've checked out my new repository, myNewRepo. Both are in the same directory. I'm trying to use the following command to load the old repo dump into the new repo:

svnadmin load ./myNewRepo < ./myOldRepo.svndump

This gives the following error:

svnadmin: Can't open file 'myNewRepo/format': No such file or directory

I've been using SVN for a long time, and I haven't seen a format file in any of my repositories. What is this format that is expected in myNewRepo?

I also tried creating an empty format file (touch format) in the myNewRepo directory. Then, when I do the svnadmin load command, I get the following:

svnadmin: Can't read file 'myNewRepo/format': End of file found

I've seen posts that are similar to this, but I haven't yet found a post that quite answers my question.

Answer 1

You need to load the dump directly into the repository, not a subfolder. You have to specify the path to the repository, not the checked out working copy. Try this:

svnadmin create ./myNewRepo
svnadmin load ./myNewRepo < ./myOldRepo.svndump

This should do the trick..