Subversion properties

Subversion allows users to invent arbitrarily-named versioned properties on files and directories, as well as unversioned properties on revisions. The only restriction is on properties whose names begin with svn: (those are reserved for Subversion's own use). While these properties may be set by users to control Subversion's behavior, users may not invent new svn: properties.

Versioned Properties

svn:executable

If present on a file, the client will make the file executable in Unix-hosted working copies. See the section called “File Executability”.

svn:mime-type

If present on a file, the value indicates the file's mime-type. This allows the client to decide whether line-based contextual merging is safe to perform during updates, and can also affect how the file behaves when fetched via web browser. See the section called “File Content Type”.

svn:ignore

If present on a directory, the value is a list of unversioned file patterns to be ignored by svn status and other subcommands. See the section called “Ignoring Unversioned Items”

svn:keywords

If present on a file, the value tells the client how to expand particular keywords within the file. See the section called “Keyword Substitution”.

svn:eol-style

If present on a file, the value tells the client how to manipulate the file's line-endings in the working copy, and in exported trees. See the section called “End-of-Line Character Sequences” and svn export.

svn:externals

If present on a directory, the value is a multi-line list of other paths and URLs the client should check out. See the section called “Externals Definitions”.

svn:special

If present on a file, indicates that the file is not an ordinary file, but a symbolic link or other special object[60].

svn:needs-lock

If present on a file, tells the client to make the file read-only in the working copy, as a reminder that the file should be locked before editing begins. See the section called “Lock Communication”.

Unversioned Properties

svn:author

If present, contains the authenticated username of the person who created the revision. (If not present, then the revision was committed anonymously.)

svn:date

Contains the UTC time the revision was created, in ISO 8601 format. The value comes from the server machine's clock, not the client's.

svn:log

Contains the log message describing the revision.

svn:autoversioned

If present, the revision was created via the autoversioning feature. See the section called “Autoversioning”.



[60] As of this writing, symbolic links are indeed the only “special” objects. But there might be more in future releases of Subversion.