Is it normal to have a .svn directory in most, if not all, subdirectories? - svn add question

Question

I am new when it comes to SVN.

I assume that in the project directory, which is under version control, there should only be a .svn directory. For example, the hierarchy of such a project should be as follows:

projectdir/ .svn/ subdir1/ subdir2/ ... 

I handed over 1 project directory to a former colleague who (surprisingly) has a .svn/ directory in most subdirectories:

 projectdir/ subdir1/ .svn/ ... subdir2/ .svn/ ... ... 

I will need to return this project to our svn server.
I am wondering if it is normal to have so many .svn/ directories in these subdirectories (I am having trouble trying to make svn add, I suspect someone has done something funny with svn in the past), or I can delete everything these subdirectories .svn/ and only care about the .svn/ directory in the root directory of my project?

Answer 1

It depends on which distribution of the subversion you are using, prior to version 1.7 there was a .svn directory in each working copy directory.

See Apache Subversion 1.7 Release Notes

You can try switching to a new format with svn upgrade

Answer 2

Prior to SVN 1.7, each subdirectory contained a hidden directory ".svn".

Starting with SVN 1.7..svn, the directory is stored in the root of the working copy and root of each path downloaded via svn: externals.

So your colleague had an older version of the SVN client, or svn: externals is used in the project. If ".svn" is in each subdirectory, an "older version" is much more likely.

In any case, you should not just delete directories. If this is due to an older SVN client, try working with this copy through the new TortoiseSVN - it will offer a working copy update. Or just check out the new working copy.