SVN Interview Questions and Answers & Answers (2025)

SVN is abbreviated for “Subversion” which is an open source control system that is used for tracing all the changes that can be made to a code. It is a kind of repository that can be used to manage files, directors, folders and also modifications that are made to these files over time.

Thus, SVN Repository can be used not only to view the complete history of changes that are made to the files with the repository but also be used to track down someone who has made those changes in the files.

Revert is simply a command that is used to “revert” any local changes in the code. Revert functions are generally of two types:

• Local Revert refers to deleting all the recent changes that have been made to the files after the start of updates and before the commit function.
• Repo Revert refers all the changes made to the preceding repo.

Some of the best practices to be followed for SVN are:

• Working from your local workspace
• Committing to all small autonomous changes
• Keeping in touch with the repository
• Watching out for conflicts
• Validating the files that you are committing and have actually changed
• Update and test before committing

Some items stored in SVN repository are:

• Minutes of the meeting
• Significant e-mails
• Source codes
• MySQL queries

The function used to in SVN are:

• To add file: SVN add filename
• To dir file: SVN add dirname

In order to apply a patch in SVN, one is firstly required to “Create Patch” by making the necessary changes and generating the .diff file. Subsequently, this .diff file can be utilized to incorporate the new code base using “Apply Patch”.

• A trunk is the mainstream of development that is related to SVN, right from the beginning of the project till the end.
• Branch is a copy of the code that is derived from a specific location within the trunk that can be used in order to apply major changes to the code while preserving the original integrity of the code.
• A tag is a point in time on the trunk/ branch that one wishes to preserve. The process of baselining the code after it has been majorly released is known as Tag.

The main difference between the two foremost functions used in SVN are as follows:

• The function SVN commit refers to either pushing or uploading all the changes made locally into the repository.
• The function SVN update refers to downloading the changes made in the repository to a local system.

The main differences between GIT and SVN repository are:

• GIT does not support the commit function across all the branches and tags; while on the other hand creating of folders at any location within the repository is allowed by SVN.
• GITs is unchangeable while SVN permits a user to treat a tag and create multiple revision under the root Tag.
• SVN is preferred over GIT for handling large files or for frequently changing the local binary files.

• The function update in SVN is used to update the local workspace that includes the changes made by the team.
• The function commit is used to implement the changes that have been made from the local workspace to repository.

Some of the common SVN commands are:

• Update
• Commit
• Revert
• Import
• Checkout
• Merge
• Copy
• Move

In order to revert to a previous version of the code, one has to use the revert function. However, the revert function will simply erase the local edits made, therefore in order to completely revert to a previous code, one has to use the merge function in collaboration with the revert function.

With an attempt to move a subset of codes from one SVN repository to another, the following functions can be employed:

• SVNadmin dump
• SVNdumpfilter include
• SVNadmin load
• SVN remove

The functions used to create new directory under version control are:

• SVN mkdir directory
• SVN mkdir http://url/directory