I'm trying to commit a new version to my SVN repository but am met with this error:
svn: Commit failed (details follow):
svn: Could not use external editor to fetch log message; consider setting the $SVN_EDITOR environment variable or using the --message (-m) or --file (-F) options
svn: None of the environment variables SVN_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR are set, and no 'editor-cmd' run-time configuration option was found new-computers-computer:trunk newcomputer$
What's wrong?
Justin,
Every time you commit with Subversion, you need to write a summary of what is being committed (i.e. the commit message). The error is because Subversion is trying to launch a text editor so that you can write a commit message, but the editor is never being launched. Setting the SVN_EDITOR in your .bash_profile will do the trick. Here are some detailed step-by-step instructions on how to set vim as the default editor used by svn: Original link dead, replaced with archive.is mirror
Alternatively, as suggested in error message, you can load a commit message from an existing file with -f, or pass in a message with -m.
Examples:
svn commit -m "Fixed a regression that prevented pigs from flying (resolves issue #123, but causes strange behavior elsewhere)" svn commit -f /path/to/a/file/with/a/long/commit/message.txt 
export EDITOR='subl -w'. For full details on command line setup for Sublime, see sublimetext.com/docs/2/osx_command_line.html
-m will resolve the problem. svn delete my/branch/path -m "type your message here" this is the branch delete command with message.If you want to set default editor that will be used every time you run
svn commit Try the following command in the shell:
export SVN_EDITOR=nano This will set nano as the text editor for commit messages. From now on, when you call svn commit without the -m flag, nano will open. Upon closing nano, SVN will continue to commit.
I also had the same issue, however it was on Windows. I was able to resolve the issue by using -m (--message) and providing the commit message.
I also tried using cygwin with a commit message and that worked.
I had a similar problem while trying to import a not versioned code into a new repository, based on the answers posted on this question i was able to solve my problem (thank you guys).
I am sharing the command i used to import a local project to SVN on using apache/http:
Where TestCodeDir is the project and hasn't been versioned yet.
svn import /var/svn/TestCodeDir http://localhost/svn/TestCodeDir -m "Initial Commit" Note: You must to have your apache server well configured and it must to be running.
I hope this could help someone.
I had the same problem while doing:
svn copy $svn_source_path $svn_destination_path I was missing adding the -m "log msg" i.e.
svn copy $svn_source_path $svn_destination_path -m -m "Test tag creation" 
