How come I have a working copy with a subdirectory without .svn in it?

Question

I have a svn working copy checked out. The root directory has a .svn subdirectory. However, the other subdirectories of the project don't have a .svn hidden directory in them. They do contain versioned files. I thought every subdirectory has to include its .svn. What's going on?

Answer 1

You must be using subversion version 1.7.x which has this working copy enhancement ( WC-NG ). In this feature, only root working copy contains hidden directory to hold pristine copies (original versions). See here to understand rationale behind WC-NG feature.

Answer 2

This is the feature of Subversion 1.7. From the Subversion 1.7 Release Notes :

A key feature of the changes introduced in Subversion 1.7 is the centralization of working copy metadata storage into a single location. Instead of a .svn directory in every directory in the working copy, Subversion 1.7 working copies have just one .svn directory—in the root of the working copy. This directory includes (among other things) an SQLite-backed database which contains all of the metadata Subversion needs for that working copy.