1. First locate the Subversion config file. Most probably you will find it at ${HOME}/.subversion/config. In the file locate the global-ignores line and add the patterns you wish to exclude from the import, typically these are generated files like .class files etc. For instance in a Maven, Java, Eclipse project you would put: global-ignores = target .classpath .project .settings

2. Run svn:import [PATH] URL. Now everything you put in the global-ignores line is excluded from the import.

3. You still do not have a working copy though since svn:import does not replace the local files with the working copy. To achieve this you can run svn co --force URL [PATH]

4. Now the files you put in global-ignores on your local file system are not ignored on your colleagues machine when they do a fresh checkout. So they could be temped to check-in the generated files. To prevent this you need to add the files to the svn:ignore list of the parent folder using the propset (or propedit) command. To achieve this you first need to comment out the global-ignores line in your config file. Then add the generated files to svn:ignore and check the code in.

This way you can check-in new code into subversion without having to manually remove all the generated files first. It would be nice though if Subversion provided a way to ignore files on import and checkout the code in a single command.