SVN Setup Of Existing Directory

I have been going through documentation and such and have SVN working, but I want to put it on an existing directory. I imported that directory, so do I rename/delete the non SVN directory and then checkout the SVN to the non SVN directory location? I am just trying to understand how to get it to start posting to our website URL.

If so, is there any way to keep the current non SVN and make it SVN rather than import and overwrite?开发者_JS百科

Thanks, I am trying to understand SVN, but find a lot of the tutorials and such on the web to be confusing.

Yes, you have it exactly. Once your code has been added to the repository, you can get rid of or rename your original code directory. Then checkout the project from the repository into the same location as your previous code and continue working from there.

UPDATE

To make it so that your website is updated from the repository, you actually need two working directories, and a repository.

Repository: The repository stores the code and changesets, but isn't directly accessible as a file system. Keep a backup!.

Working directory 1: You develop and test your code from a working directory checked out from the repository. Commit changes back to the repository.

Working directory 2: Rename the code directory on your webserver. Checkout a copy of the code to your web server in its place. Technically it is now a working directory, since it contains the .svn metadata directories, though you won't usually make changes here.

Make changes to your code from your development working directory (1) and commit them back to the repository. When you are satisfied that they are working correctly and have been properly tested, on the web server's code copy (2) do svn update (or if you're using Tortoise SVN on the web server, do an update). This will synchronize the server code with the current development version.

Subversion will not automatically push updates to your web server. You will need to pull them in with an update when you need to. It is possible to use what's called a "post-commit hook" to cause Subversion to execute a script when commits are made, and that script could update or export code to your production web server. However, you would need to write the script and it's kind of an advanced usage of Subversion. I would recommend trying out the method I described with a working copy on the web server to get accustomed to the workflow befrore trying anything more complicated.

Addendum If you really want to do this (and I don't really recommend it unless you really test well) a very easy method would be to schedule a cron job that does svn update every couple of hours (or minutes) on your production site.

Don't forget that if you do happen to modify your code directly on the web server, you must commit it back to the repository from there, and do an update on your development working copy.