# Getting PKGBUILDs from SVN

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### Do NOT download the whole repo

Warning: The entire SVN repo is huge. Not only will it take an obscene amount of disk space, but it will also tax the archlinux.org server for you to download it. Do not download the whole repo, only follow the instructions below.

If you abuse this service, your address may be blocked.

Never use the public SVN for any sort of scripting.

### Non-recursive checkout

For core, extra, testing:

    $ svn checkout --depth=empty svn://svn.archlinux.org/packages

For community:

    $ svn checkout --depth=empty svn://svn.archlinux.org/community

In both cases, it simply creates an empty directory, but it does know that it is an svn checkout.

In the sections below, just replace the packages directory name by community when working with community packages.

### Checkout a package

    $ cd packages
    $ svn update package-name

This will pull the package you requested into your checkout. From now on, any time you svn update at the top level, this will be updated as well.

If you specify a package that doesn't exist, svn won't warn you. It will just print something like "At revision 115847", without creating any files. If that happens, check your spelling of the package name and that the package has not been moved to another repository (i.e. from community to the main repository).

### Updating all packages

    $ cd packages
    $ svn update

### Checkout an older revision of a package

    $ cd packages
    $ svn log package-name

Find out the revision you want by examining the history, then:

    $ svn update -r1729 package-name

This will update an existing working copy of package-name to the chosen revision.

You can also specify a date. If no revision on that day exists, svn will grab the most recent package before that time:

    $ svn update -r{20090303} package-name

It is possible to checkout packages at versions before they were moved to another repository as well; check the logs thoroughly for the date they were moved or the last revision number.

Categories:

- Package development
- Package management