SVN: How to get the first revision of a file?

Question

When working with a subdirectory in a repository, how to find the revision when that specific directory has been added to the repository? By using "svn info http://.." I can find out when it was modified for the last time ("Last Changed Rev"), but I also need to find out the revision number of the commit when that directory (or file) was added for the first time (it's "first" revision).

I have been searching for that at the "SVN book", googling, but, obviously, I got no results.

Note: I need this for making a PHP script which downloads logs and stores them locally, just to make it clear and avoid "use tortoise/svnx/versions/you_name_it application" ;)

Answer 1

You could use svn log, with a reverse revision range:

svn log -r 1:HEAD --limit 1 <REPO_URL>

Answer 2

The last entry of

svn log http://...

Answer 3

For someone trying to do this in pysvn:

def get_branch_creation_rev(url)
    import pysvn
    cl = pysvn.Client()
    return  pysvn.Revision(pysvn.opt_revision_kind.number,
                           cl.log(url)[-1].data.get('revision').number)

Answer 4

Not sure what the command line method is. I use Tortoise on windows to do most of my SVN navigating. If you have that tool, just right click on the folder and it is tortoise SVN/Show Log.