Subversion supports CVS-like keyword expansion which can be used to embed filename and revision information within the file itself. Keywords currently supported are:

To find out how to use these keywords, look at the svn:keywords section in the Subversion book, which gives a full description of these keywords and how to enable and use them.

Figure 5.32. Adding properties

To add a new property, first click on Add.... Select the required property name from the combo box, or type in a name of your own choice, then enter a value in the box below. Properties which take multiple values, such as an ignore list, can be entered on multiple lines. Click on OK to add that property to the list.

If you want to apply a property to many items at once, select the files/folders in explorer, then select Context menu → properties

If you want to apply the property to every file and folder in the hierarchy below the current folder, check the Recursive checkbox.

Some properties, for example svn:needs-lock, can only be applied to files, so the property name doesn't appear in the drop down list for folders. You can still apply such a property recursively to all files in a hierarchy, but you have to type in the property name yourself.

If you wish to edit an existing property, select that property from the list of existing properties, then click on Edit....

If you wish to remove an existing property, select that property from the list of existing properties, then click on Remove.

The svn:externals property can be used to pull in other projects from the same repository or a completely different repository. For more information, read the section called “Referenced Projects”.

Often you will find yourself applying the same set of properties many times, for example bugtraq:logregex. To simplify the process of copying properties from one project to another, you can use the Export/Import feature.

From the file or folder where the properties are already set, use TortoiseSVN → properties, select the properties you wish to export and click on Export.... You will be prompted for a filename where the property names and values will be saved.

From the folder(s) where you wish to apply these properties, use TortoiseSVN → properties and click on Import.... You will be prompted for a filename to import from, so navigate to the place you saved the export file previously and select it. The properties will be added to the folders non-recursively.

If you want to add properties to a tree recursively, follow the steps above, then in the property dialog select each property in turn, click on Edit..., check the Apply property recursively box and click on OK.

The Import file format is binary and proprietary to TortoiseSVN. Its only purpose is to transfer properties using Import and Export, so there is no need to edit these files.

TortoiseSVN can handle binary property values using files. To read a binary property value, Save... to a file. To set a binary value, use a hex editor or other appropriate tool to create a file with the content you require, then Load... from that file.

Although binary properties are not often used, they can be useful in some applications. For example if you are storing huge graphics files, or if the application used to load the file is huge, you might want to store a thumbnail as a property so you can obtain a preview quickly.

You can configure Subversion and TortoiseSVN to set properties automatically on files and folders when they are added to the repository. There are two ways of doing this.

You can edit the subversion configuration file to enable this feature on your client. The General page of TortoiseSVN's settings dialog has an edit button to take you there directly. The config file is a simple text file which controls some of subversion's workings. You need to change two things: firstly in the section headed miscellany uncomment the line enable-auto-props = yes. Secondly you need to edit the section below to define which properties you want added to which file types. This method is a standard subversion feature and works with any subversion client. However it has to be defined on each client individually - there is no way to propagate these settings from the repository.

An alternative method is to set the tsvn:autoprops property on folders, as described in the next section. This method only works for TortoiseSVN clients, but it does get propagated to all working copies on update.

Whichever method you choose, you should note that auto-props are only applied to files at the time they are added to the repository. Auto-props will never change the properties of files which are already versioned.

If you want to be absolutely sure that new files have the correct properties applied, you should set up a repository pre-commit hook to reject commits where the required properties are not set.