Ignoring files and folders in Subversion with propset

Before committing code to the Subversion repository we always set the svn:ignore property on the directory to prevent some files and directories to be checked in. You would usually want to exclude the IDE project files and the target/ directory.

It’s useful to put all the ignored files and directories into a file: .svnignore. Your .svnignore could look like:

*.iml
target/*

Put the .svnignore file in the project folder and commit it to your repository so the ignored files are shared between committers.

Now reference the file with the -F option:
$ svn propset svn:ignore -F .svnignore.

Of course I hope everyone has by now moved to git and uses .gitignore for this same purpose.