Protect a file from accidental commits

svn

Solution

Maybe use the SVN lock mechanism?

http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/nightly/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-locking.html

This might not offer enough protection, since you can "steal" locks from other users, but it will prevent users from committing changes to a particular file, until they steal your lock.

Problem

Consider an SVN repository which has a file with great production importance: ``` . ├── Makefile ├── README ├── config │   └── system_configurations │   └── IMPORTANT.conf .... ``` Developers often change `IMPORTANT.conf` locally for testing purposes, but don't want to commit it accidentally. Is there a way to protect this file, so that committing it will show some kind of warning or require some special command line argument? I know there are some architectural solutions (e.g., use `LOCAL_IMPORTANT.conf` locally, symlinks etc.) - I'm looking for a solution from the SVN realm.

Original source