svn fsfs doesn't create a filesystem. it creates a bdb instead

Question

i'm trying to set up an SVN repository, which works as a filesystem.

my svn version is 1.6.something

it was configured to be served via apache (http://my.domain/repo) but it also works via the filesystem (file:///path/to/my/repo).

it doesn't matter if I ask specifically to create a "fsfs" type repositry:

svnadmin create --fs-type=fsfs repo

and then

svn import -m commmmment /some/path/to/import/ file:///path/to/my/repo

finally:

ls -lR /path/to/my/repo

the filesystem there contains a database, not the files i wanted. i thought i'd see there a list of my checked-in files, along with some hidden repository stuff.

i need to be able to see the repository as a filesystem, in particular.

i'm missing something fundamental here, but what?

Answer 1

I think you misunderstand what FSFS is. Are you sure that it created a BDB repository? (Do you have *.dbd files created?) If you look at the db/fs-type file at the root of your repository with a text editor, this will confirm which repository type is being used.

FSFS is not meant to provide you a directly-usable view to the contents of the repository. It still requires a compatible SVN library to access it. If you need to access the contents of it, do a svn export against it. Yes, you can access such a repository over either HTTP or file://, if you have them configured appropriately - but you still need a Subversion client to do this.

Additional details on each of these backends (and the differences between them) are available at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.reposadmin.planning.html#svn.reposadmin.basics.backends.