Keyword expansion is not the default for files added to an SVN repository.  And it’s done on a per file basis (with CVS we could configure an entire repository to turn on keyword expansion — .)  Some svn tools and plugins allow for defaulting properties when adding new files.  I’ve configured the two I use most often (eclipse and smartsvn) to the svn:keywords property for all new files:

svn:keywords : Date Revision Author URL Id

You can see a file’s properties from the command line with

svn pl -v filename

Some tool (like netbeans) don’t provide for defaulting properties when adding new files.  And there are probably some people (not gonna name names :^) who don’t configure their tools to default the svn:keywords property anyway.  So below is a little script that’ll do it for you.  The script is in ruby ’cause Brian (who first sketched it out a few years ago for a project) wanted to do some ruby scripting.

You can run it from time to time from the command line or better yet, set up a cron job on the build server to do it once or twice a day.  Our cron job does something like this:

cd ~/tmp/scratch-dir
svn checkout https://opi.svn.cvsdude.com/xyzzy
add_svn_keywords.rb
svn commit -m "Added svn:keywords property"

It’s up to you if you want to do a full checkout each time (an update would be faster.)

Here’s the script…

#!/usr/bin/ruby
#
# Adds svn:keywords property to source files.  Default to process the
# current directory.  Note: this does not commit the changes!
#
# Usage:
#   ruby add_svn_keywords.rb [src_dir]
#
# where
#   src_dir (Optional) The directory to process.
#
# for example
#   ruby add_svn_keywords.rb c:/mnscu/hr/code
#
require 'find'
require 'fileutils'
include FileUtils::Verbose
require 'ftools'
require 'optparse'

# -- functions --------------------------------------------------------------

def do_system(command)
    puts command
    system(command) or raise($?)
end

# -- vars -------------------------------------------------------------------

working_dir = "."
keywords = "Date Revision Author URL Id"
usage = "Usage: ruby add_svn_keywords.rb [src_dir]"

# -- options and svn checkout/update ----------------------------------------

opts = OptionParser.new
opts.parse(ARGV) rescue usage

unless ARGV[0].nil?
    working_dir = ARGV[0]
end

# -- svn properties ---------------------------------------------------------

num = 0
Find.find(working_dir) do |path|

    if FileTest.directory?(path)
        if File.basename(path) == '.svn'
            # allways skip the .svn dirs
            Find.prune
        else
            # don't bother setting properties on dirs
            next
        end
    else # must be a file...
        # quote spaces on paths that contain them (so svn wont fail)
        path.gsub!(/ /, ' ')

        # add keywords property to some files...
        if File.file?(path) and path =~ /.(ddl|bat|sh|css|dtd|el|groovy|gsp|html|java|js|jsp|properties|sql|txt|xml)$/
            keywordprop = `svn proplist --verbose #{path}`.to_a.find_all {|line| line.include? keywords  }
            if keywordprop.size == 0
                do_system("svn propset svn:keywords "#{keywords}" #{path}")
                num += 1
            end
        end
    end
end # find

# -- commit and cleanup -----------------------------------------------------

if num > 0
    #do_system("svn commit -m "Added svn:keywords property" #{working_dir}");
    puts "Added svn:keywords property to: #{num} files"
else
    puts "No changes"
end

# -- end of file ------------------------------------------------------------