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Check Out a Working Copy

Check out means to make a copy of a project from a repository to your local file system. This copy is called a working copy. An Apache Subversion™ working copy is a specially formatted directory structure that contains additional .svn directories that store Subversion information, as well as a pristine copy of each item that is checked out.

To check out a working copy, locate and select the desired directory in the Repositories view and select the Check out action from the contextual menu, the toolbar, or the Repository menu.

Figure 1. Check Out Dialog Box

The following options can be configured in the Check out dialog box:

URL
The location of the repository directory to be checked out.
Note: To check out an item that was deleted, moved, or replaced, you need to specify the original URL (before the item was removed) and use a peg revision at the end (for example, URL@rev1234).
Revision
You can choose between the HEAD or Other revision. If you need to check out a specific revision, specify it in the Other text box or use the History button and choose a revision from the History dialog box.
Check out to
Specify the location where you want to check out the new working copy by typing the local path in the text box or by using the Browse button. If the specified local path does not point to an existing directory, it will automatically be created.
Important: By default, the SVN system only checks out the content of the directory specified by the URL, and not the directory itself. Therefore, it is recommended to use the Browse button to select the check out location so that the client will automatically append the name of the remote directory to the path of the selected directory.
Warning: The destination directory should be empty. If files exist, they are skipped (left unchanged) by the check out operation and displayed as modified after the operation has finished. Also, the destination directory must not already be under version control.
Format
The SVN format of the working copy. You can choose between SVN 1.8 or SVN 1.7.
Depth
The depth is useful if you want to check out only a part of the selected repository directory and bring the rest of the files and subdirectories in a future update. You can find out more about the checkout depth in the sparse checkouts section. You can choose between the following depths:
  • Recursive (infinity) - Checks out all the files and folders contained in the selected folder.
  • Immediate children (immediates) - Checks out only the child files and folders without recursing subfolders.
  • File children only (files) - Checks out only the child files.
  • This folder only (empty) - Checks out only the selected folder (no child file or folder is included).
Ignore "svn:externals" definitions
When selected, external items are ignored in the check out operation. This option is only available if you choose the Recursive (infinity) depth.

After a check out, the new working copy is added to the list in the Working Copy view and loaded automatically.