build automation - SVN checkout ignore folder

Question

Can I ignore a folder on svn checkout? I need to ignore DOCs folder on checkout at my build server.

edit: Ignore externals isn't an option. I have some externals that I need.

Answer 1

You can't directly ignore folders on a checkout, but you can use sparse checkouts in svn 1.5. For example:

$ svn co http://subversion/project/trunk my_checkout --depth immediates

This will check files and directories from your project trunk into 'my_checkout', but not recurse into those directories. Eg:

$ cd my_checkout && ls
bar/ baz foo xyzzy/

Then to get the contents of 'bar' down:

$ cd bar && svn update --set-depth infinity