SVN Branching and excluding directories

I have the following repository:

URL/123/trunk

I would like to branch the contents of trunk to

URL/123/branches/build/1

Inside trunk however, I have a development folder I would like to NOT be branched. The program does not require the development folder, it contains only source code.

Is it possible to branch it, but have it ignore the development folder so that doesn't get branched?

These builds are for testing p开发者_如何学JAVAurposes only and denying access to the source is a must.

I also use TortoiseSVN if there's an easy way with that?

If you are branching purely for the purposes of saving a release build of your entire application, then there may be a better way than trying to deal with protected source code and release software all co-located within one SVN branch (trunk).

Instead, it is best practice to checkout known good (tagged, branched) revisions of source code from source control, and build your release program on your workstation or build server. A reliable build from source is better than maintaining many revisions of binaries.

Perhaps your deployment approach is to check in the program to SVN so that you can check it out again on the deployment server. If so, keep the latest build separate from the source in SVN and you'll avoid having to delete the copied development directory.

If you are not deploying from SVN, then don't keep binaries in the source control system. Your builds could always incorporate a package step that creates the directory structure (without the development directory), and a deploy step that migrates it to your deployment environment.