What is -dry-run? The -dry-run is a method that is used to figure out what are the files that would get actaully updated
when you update your svn repository.
When and how it is useful? case 1: This is mainly used when you are working in a big team, and before you commit the day’s work to the repository, its always better to update your repository. So in that case if you have some working copies or committed files in your local
then they may end up in conflict.
case 2:
During release management.. Just imagine you work with multiple branches of the project and before you merge your code base from one branch to another branch using the command svn merge its always better to do a dry run, using which you can check what are the files that get updated, merged and/or end up with conflict
Note: If you dont check with dry run before you start and end up with conflict. Please read my other tip to solve such problem.
Here goes the link
case 3:
This might look like a simple case, but much needed at times. When you need to check your svn status. You can do a dry run as an alias function to actual svn update. At times it is very much handy during project release process.
Ways to achieve:
1) to do an svn merge in a single branch or between two branches
svn merge -dry-run -r xxxx:yyyy http://url.branch1 http://url.branch2
2 to do the same for updating a svn repository
svn update –dry-run
3) svn status -u
Hope this is useful to those who are new to svn or in handling multiple branches.