Tortoise SVN: Resolve conflict using ‘theirs’. What does it mean

For additional details see the SVNBook: "Status of working copy files and directories".

The common statuses:

U: Working file was updated

G: Changes on the repo were automatically merged into the working copy

M: Working copy is modified

C: This file conflicts with the version in the repo

?: This file is not under version control

!: This file is under version control but is missing or incomplete

A: This file will be added to version control (after commit)

A+: This file will be moved (after commit)

D: This file will be deleted (after commit)

S: This signifies that the file or directory has been switched from the path of the rest of the working copy (using svn switch) to a branch

I: Ignored

X: External definition

~: Type changed

R: Item has been replaced in your working copy. This means the file was scheduled for deletion, and then a new file with the same name was scheduled for addition in its place.

L : Item is locked

E: Item existed, as it would have been created, by an svn update.

Hmm, not sure I agree with Nick re tag being similar to a branch. A tag is just a marker

• Trunk would be the main body of development, originating from the start of the project until the present.

• Branch will be a copy of code derived from a certain point in the trunk that is used for applying major changes to the code while preserving the integrity of the code in the trunk. If the major changes work according to plan, they are usually merged back into the trunk.

• Tag will be a point in time on the trunk or a branch that you wish to preserve. The two main reasons for preservation would be that either this is a major release of the software, whether alpha, beta, RC or RTM, or this is the most stable point of the software before major revisions on the trunk were applied.

In open source projects, major branches that are not accepted into the trunk by the project stakeholders can become the bases for forks -- e.g., totally separate projects that share a common origin with other source code.

The branch and tag subtrees are distinguished from the trunk in the following ways:

Subversion allows sysadmins to create hook scripts which are triggered for execution when certain events occur; for instance, committing a change to the repository. It is very common for a typical Subversion repository implementation to treat any path containing "/tag/" to be write-protected after creation; the net result is that tags, once created, are immutable (at least to "ordinary" users). This is done via the hook scripts, which enforce the immutability by preventing further changes if tag is a parent node of the changed object.

Subversion also has added features, since version 1.5, relating to "branch merge tracking" so that changes committed to a branch can be merged back into the trunk with support for incremental, "smart" merging.