Before reading on, here is the most important command you'll ever need when using Subversion: svn help. The Subversion command-line client is self-documenting—at any time, a quick svn help subcommand will describe the syntax, options, and behavior of the subcommand.

$ svn help import
import: Commit an unversioned file or tree into the repository.
usage: import [PATH] URL

  Recursively commit a copy of PATH to URL.
  If PATH is omitted '.' is assumed.
  Parent directories are created as necessary in the repository.
  If PATH is a directory, the contents of the directory are added
  directly under URL.
  Unversionable items such as device files and pipes are ignored
  if --force is specified.

Valid options:
  -q [--quiet]             : print nothing, or only summary information
  -N [--non-recursive]     : obsolete; try --depth=files or --depth=immediates
  --depth ARG              : limit operation by depth ARG ('empty', 'files',
                             'immediates', or 'infinity')
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