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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>Help!</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.73.2" /><link rel="start" href="index.html" title="Version Control with Subversion" /><link rel="up" href="svn.tour.html" title="Chapter 2. Basic Usage" /><link rel="prev" href="svn.tour.html" title="Chapter 2. Basic Usage" /><link rel="next" href="svn.tour.importing.html" title="Getting Data into your Repository" /></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Help!</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="svn.tour.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 2. Basic Usage</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="svn.tour.importing.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="svn.tour.help"></a>Help!</h2></div></div></div><p>Before reading on, here is the most important command you'll
ever need when using Subversion: <span class="command"><strong>svn help</strong></span>.
The Subversion command-line client is self-documenting—at
any time, a quick <span class="command"><strong>svn help
<em class="replaceable"><code>SUBCOMMAND</code></em></strong></span> will describe
the syntax, options, and behavior of the subcommand.</p><pre class="screen">
$ svn help import
import: Commit an unversioned file or tree into the repository.
usage: import [PATH] URL
Recursively commit a copy of PATH to URL.
If PATH is omitted '.' is assumed.
Parent directories are created as necessary in the repository.
If PATH is a directory, the contents of the directory are added
directly under URL.
Valid options:
-q [--quiet] : print as little as possible
-N [--non-recursive] : operate on single directory only
…
</pre><div class="sidebar"><p class="title"><b>Options and Switches and Flags, Oh My!</b></p><p>The Subversion command line client has numerous command
modifiers (which we call options), but there are two
distinct kinds of options—“<span class="quote">short options</span>”
that are a single hyphen followed by a single letter, and
“<span class="quote">long options</span>” that consist of two hyphens
followed by a number of letters (eg <code class="literal">-s</code>
and <code class="literal">--this-is-a-long-option</code>
respectively). Every option has a long format, but only
certain options have an additional short format (these are
typically options that are frequently used). In order to
maintain clarity, we <span class="emphasis"><em>usually</em></span> use the
long form in code examples, but when describing options, if
there's a short form, we'll provide the long form (to
improve clarity), and the short form (to make it easier to
remember). You should use whichever one you're more
comfortable with, but don't try to use both.</p></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="svn.tour.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="svn.tour.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="svn.tour.importing.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 2. Basic Usage </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Getting Data into your Repository</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
