Subversion, renaming, Wha?

Question

So i have a funny problem.

Subversion, you are not allowed to rename items with the same name if the only difference is capitalization. Netbeans has subversion. Netbeans allows you to rename files if the capitalization changes.

I renamed something called eventCreator.php to EventCreator.php in subversion and uploaded (it is a class). Everything went fine in Netbeans. In fact, I made about 10 more commits. I tried to download it on another computer, and this is the error that happens
"Can't open file
C:\xampp\htdocs\MyProject\scripts.svn\tmp\text-base\eventCreator.php.svn-base':
The system cannot find the file specified."

My repository is located at DreamHost. So i go to dreamhost and i am able to go into the scripts folder and see both eventCreator.php and EventCreator.php in the repository, yet i cannot download it with either netbeans or tortoiseSVN.
Any Help?

Answer 1

Delete not necessary file with

svn del http://domain/path/to/eventCreator.php

Or you can even open repo browser (from subversion context menu) and delete the file there, without using boring console commands ;-)

Answer 2

Subversion 1.7 now appears to handle case only renames on Windows.

Answer 3

Subversion is case sensitive. If you tell it store 20 files all with different combination of case, it'll store it. Now, when you check those files out of the repository, the platform you're on may either warn you, refuse to check out (as it did in your case), or just overwrite the content of the first file written with the second, third, you get the idea.

To resolve this, zerkms' answer is right on track. Delete the rendition of the file you don't want with a repo browser or some tool (command line if need be) that works directly with the repository on the server.

To keep this from happening again, use the case-insensitive.py script from the Subversion project in your pre-commit hook script. It'll do a check to see if there is already file in the repository with a different case when the commit is adding a file. If there is, it'll allow you to reject the commit until it's resolved.

Since you have a third party hosting your Subversion repository, contact them about getting this hook applied if you cannot do with their management tools.

Answer 4

Another way is to simply Copy (right click Copy on the project) the project to the new name. This will remove all traces of .svn directory and you can re-commit it. However, you will also loose the link to all the editing that was previously done and commited in SVN.

Answer 5

The issue isn't Subversion, it's Windows (and no, Macs have the same problem, so don't start feeling superior on this one -- fanboy.)

In Windows, cases are preserved, but not significant in the name of the file. In Windows, these are all the same file:

• myfile.txt
• MYfile.TXT
• MYFILE.TXT
• MyFiLe.TxT

Unfortunately, Unix (except for the Mac) is both case preserving and significant. To Unix, all of these files are different files.

Hilarity ensues when you store your Subversion repository on a Linux/Unix host, but use a Windows/Mac client. The Unix Subversion repository is tracking each variation of capitalization as a different file, but the subversion client on your PC thinks they're all the same. There are two solutions:

• Use a Linux computer to do a checkout, fix the issue, and check it back in.
• Use svn delete http://.... URL syntax to delete one of the miscreant copies, so there's only a single file with that name.