Work in Subversion
¶ Prior Reading
This documentation assumes that you know how to work in the command line and have
installed a Subversion (SVN) client:
Install a Subversion Client: Mac(for Mac users only)
Install a Subversion Client: Windows(for Windows users only)
Install a Subversion Client: Linux(for Linux users only)
¶ Disambiguation
You will regularly use both SVN and standard Terminal commands when working in your
command line. This documenatation deals only with SVN commands. We recommend that
you keep both this documentation and
Work in the Command Line (Terminal)open until you are comfortable working in the command line and until you understand both:
The difference between the generic Terminal commands (
cd
, mkdir
, etc.) and the specific Subversion commands described in this page, andWhen to use a generic Terminal command and when to use an SVN command.
¶ Rationale
All LEMDO files are stored in a Subversion repository on an HCMC server. The repository is a safe, accessible, versioned place to keep our work. This
repository maintains a copy of every version of each file. If necessary, we can retrieve
an earlier version of a file or even of the entire project. Once you have installed
a Subversion client, you can interact with the HCMC server. You will be checking out a local copy of the repository during your first work session, updating your local
copy at the beginning of each new work session and regularly throughout those work
sessions, and committing your local changes to the HCMC server.
At the beginning of every work session, you must update your local copy of the LEMDO repository so that you
have the most recent tools and files. We sometimes make global changes across the
repo that may affect your file. Do not assume that because the file is
yoursthat it is exactly the way you left it. Global changes that affect the files of multiple editors are always announced by email through the lemdo_repo_users email list (usually because we have to ask you to pause your work for an hour or so). Improvements to the schema, documentation, and editor tools happen so regularly that we do not announce them; you will want to have the latest tools at your disposal.
We also strongly recommend that you update periodically during long work sessions.

¶ Practice: Use Subversion Commands
All Subversion commands begin with the abbreviation
svn
followed by a space. SVN commands will do something only if you are working within
a directory that is checked out from a Subversion repository. In other words, you must have moved
(via your Terminal) into the lemdo directory where you have checked out the LEMDO repository.You will continue to use Terminal commands during your work session. Terminal commands
enable you to move up and down the folder hierarchy in your lemdo directory. SVN commands enable you to change things in that directory.
¶ SVN Commands: Reference Table
The following is a table of common commands used when working with SVN. Each command
should be followed by pressing the Enter/Return key. For more detailed instructions
for using common SVN commands, see the documentation linked to from
Further Reading.
Action | How to do it |
Create a lemdo directory and check out the repository |
svn checkout https://hcmc.uvic.ca/svn/lemdo
|
Find out about the repo |
svn info
|
Find out the history |
svn log
|
Get detailed history |
svn log -v
|
Get history of one file (in this example, stuff/poem.txt) |
svn log -v stuff/poem.txt
|
Path completion |
svn log -v stuff/p then press Tab |
Examine changes (in this example, from revision 3 to revision 4) |
svn diff -r 3:4 stuff/poem.txt
|
Determine responsibility (note that both of these commands will return the exact same result: who committed the most recent change to the specified file) |
svn blame stuff/poem.txt or svn praise stuff/poem.txt
|
Check the status of your repository (what you have changed, what has yet to be added, etc.) |
svn status
|
Add a new file (in this example, located at stuff/myfile.txt) |
svn add stuff/myfile.txt
|
Commit all modified files |
svn commit -m "Adding my poem"
|
Commit just one file |
svn commit stuff/mypoem.txt -m "Adding @rhyme to all linegroup elements"
|
Commit a sequence of files |
svn commit myFile.txt stuff/mypoem.txt bibliography.xml -m "Fixing references in myFile
and mypoem and adding citations to the bibliography."
|
¶ Best Practices for working in Subversion
Always do an
svn up
at the beginning of and during each work session.Make sure your local file is valid before you commit. See
Validate Files.
Always do an
svn status
before you commit.Change into the directory containing the file you want to commit using the command
cd
before you commit the file.Write detailed commit messages.
For your own peace of mind, you might want to make a note of the revision number when
you check out and again when you commit. Every time you or someone else commits a
change to the repository, the revision number increases by 1. If you need us to
roll backto an earlier version of your file, it is helpful to have the revision number.
¶ Other Resources
For further information about how to use Subversion, consult Version Control with Subversion.
Prosopography
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of
Victoria, Director of The Map
of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama
Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she
co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old
Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s
A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML
and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice
(with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not
Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in
Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern
Literary Studies, Shakespeare
Bulletin, Renaissance and
Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval
and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives
(MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern
England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and
the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in
Early Modern England (Ashgate); New
Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter);
Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating
Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and
Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking
Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital
Technologies (Routledge); and Civic
Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern
London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Joey Takeda
Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he
assumed in 2020 after three years as the Lead Developer on
LEMDO.
Mahayla Galliford
Research assistant, remediator, encoder, 2021–present. Mahayla Galliford is a fourth-year
student in the English Honours and Humanities Scholars programs at the University
of Victoria. She researches early modern drama and her Jamie Cassels Undergraduate
Research Award project focused on approaches to encoding early modern stage directions.
Martin Holmes
Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the
UVicʼs Humanities Computing and Media Centre for
over two decades, and has been involved with dozens
of Digital Humanities projects. He has served on
the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of
the Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as
lead developer on LEMDO in 2020. He is a collaborator on
the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.
Navarra Houldin
Project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them)
completed their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During
their degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs
Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and
sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America.
Nicole Vatcher
Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.)
in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was womenʼs
writing in the modernist period.
Tracey El Hajj
Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD
from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science
and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched
Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on
Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life.Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.
Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
Glossary
directory
“Another word for folder.”
Humanities and Computing Media Centre (HCMC)
“”
repository or
“The repository contains all the files in the LEMDO project. The LEMDO repository
is saved to a server in the basement of the Clearihue Building at UVic. All LEMDO
files are under version control through Subversion, a repository maintenance tool
that keeps a complete history of every change ever made to every LEMDO file.”
repo
Subversion
“An open-source version control system that allows us to keep, track, and restore
every version of every file in the repository.”
svn checkout
“A Terminal command used to download a copy of the entire LEMDO repository to your
local computer.”
Metadata
Authority title | Work in Subversion |
Type of text | Documentation |
Short title | |
Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
Series | Linked Early Modern Drama Online |
Source |
TEI Customization created by Martin Holmes, Joey Takeda, and Janelle Jenstad; documentation written by members of the LEMDO Team
|
Editorial declaration | n/a |
Edition | Released with Linked Early Modern Drama Online 1.0 |
Encoding description | Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines |
Document status | prgGenerated |
Funder(s) | Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada |
License/availability | This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except in quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the documentation in the classroom. |