The Subversion svn:executable property

Set the Subversion executable property with ...

   svn propset svn:executable script_that_does_something.py

... to teach Subversion that script_that_does_something.py should be executable.

(If you ask for svn propset --help Subversion will tell you that there are two different command forms of propset. But the one given here is usually the one we want.)

The benefit here is that future check-outs of the repository that contains script_that_does_something.py will have the executability permission bits set on the file from the moment it is checked out. This means that you'll be able to check out and then execute the script immediately afterwards without having to first chmod 755 the script.

Interesting potential side-effect of using svn:executable is that you may occasionally find a non-executable file listed as executable in the output of ls -l:

  $ ls -l
  total 29056
  -rwxr-xr-x  1 foo  foo      1473 Jun 17 10:52 simple-text-file.rtf

Two things could be going on here.

It could be that you manually set simple-text-file.rtf to executable with a call to chmod 755 simple-text-file.rtf or equivalent at some point. If that's the case then chmod 644 simple-text-file.rtf will unset the executability bits on the file.

Alternatively, it could be that the svn:executable property is set on simple-text-file.rtf in the repository that houses the file. If that's the case then chmod 644 simple-text-file.rtf will not do what you think. The command will instead set simple-text-file.rtf to nonexecutable only until the next check-in. After next check-in simple-text-file.rtf will again be marked as executable. The reason for this is that changing permissions on your local copy of the file does nothing to remove the svn:executable property from the copy of the file in the repository. The solution here is to remove svn:executable with svn propdel svn:executable simple-text-file.rtf.