Editing Apache Subversion (section)

==Branching and tagging==
Subversion uses the inter-file branching model from [[Perforce]]<ref>[http://www.perforce.com/perforce/branch.html Inter-File Branching: A Practical Method for Representing Variants] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070714160428/http://www.perforce.com/perforce/branch.html |date=2007-07-14 }}</ref> to implement [[Branching (software)|branches]] and [[Revision tag|tagging]]. A branch is a separate line of development.<ref>[https://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-branchtag.html Branching / Tagging — TortoiseSVN]</ref> Tagging refers to labeling the repository at a certain point in time so that it can be easily found in the future. In Subversion, the only difference between branches and tags is how they are used.

A new branch or tag is set up by using the "{{mono|svn copy}}" command, which should be used in place of the native operating system mechanism. The copied directory is linked to the original in the repository to preserve its history, and the copy takes very little extra space in the repository.

All the versions in each branch maintain the history of the file up to the point of the copy, plus any changes made since. One can "merge" changes back into the [[Trunk (software)|trunk]] or between branches.

{{Wide image|Subversion project visualization.svg|815|Visualization of a simple Subversion project|100%|center|alt=alt text}}