TortoiseSVN: What is head revision

Question

I\'m a VSS user learning how to use SVN, and I have selected TortoiseSVN as my platform. Can someone tell me what the term \"HEAD Revision\" means?

Answer 1

In Subversion, the repository has a sequentially numbered revision that marks each state. HEAD is an alias for the latest revision of the repository. When a revision is not specified, HEAD is assumed.

File and directory content are referenced by path and revision. The reference is to the content at the path when the repository was changed to that revision—whether the content at that path was changed or not.

Note: If the last action at a path was to delete it, that path does not have a HEAD revision (nor the repository revision created when the deletion was committed, nor any thereafter).

[So, contrary to some other answers and some cited documentation, HEAD does not refer to the latest revision of a file. You would have to go back to at least just before it was deleted for that.]