Take the 2-minute tour ×

I have two programmers who make changes to the same project. Their commits interchange, but they mostly work on different parts of the project (although very often they modify the same files):

 Commit 1 - Programmer A
 Commit 2 - Programmer A
 Commit 3 - Programmer B
 Commit 4 - Programmer A
 Commit 5 - Programmer B
 Commit 6 - Programmer A

Now I would like to review the changes between commit 1 and commit 6, but without seeing the changes made by programmer B (commit 3 and 5). I'm using WebSVN but it doesn't allow me to do that. Is it possible to achieve this effect using another tool, like TortoiseSVN?

EDIT: I understand that for some complex changes (the same file changed multiple times by different authors) it's hard to filter out changes made by programmer B completely. But it would be nice if the tool was at least able to filter out files that were changed only by programmer B from the result.

EDIT 2: Branching is not an option for me, as both of the programmers need to stay in sync with their code. I already tried this approach and ran into lots of trouble merging the changes, as the programmers often change the same files.

share|improve this question
add comment

4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted


Yes: you can merge only the changesets you're interested in into your working copy, and review the combined change there.

If you need to do this kind of thing often, you probably want to look at using branches more (per person, or per feature).

share|improve this answer
add comment

In TortoiseSVN you have to select the branch you would like to review. Let me assume you do this on trunk. Go via Repo-Browser and select trunk, right mouse button -> Show Log. In the Log Messages Windows you go to filter field and type in the author name (select from drop down author)...Then select the range of revisions you would like to check and right mouse button -> Compare Revisions and you see only the list of changes made by the selected author. You can select a particular file to review a file or select from the context menu Blame to see the lines which have been changed in relationship with others around...

And ouf course like already mentioned you should think about a branching strategy to simplify your life and of the developers too.

share|improve this answer
The result of the comparison includes EVERY change made between the two selected revisions, there's no filtering by author. –  pako Oct 15 '10 at 21:44
After you selected show-log there is a single line input field in the upper right of TortoiseSVN there you can give the authros name...tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/… (There you see the input field). –  khmarbaise Oct 16 '10 at 9:34
Yes, the list shows me revisions made by a specific author. But then I want to compare two of them, EXCLUDING the changes made by other people. Unfortunately, doing such a comparison seems to be impossible in TortoiseSVN. –  pako Oct 16 '10 at 13:41
add comment

In TortoiseSVN you can do a "Blame" between two revisions for a specific file. This doesn't allow you to filter out the programmer you don't want to see but it does allow you to see who made what change.

share|improve this answer
Yes, but I want to look at the changes globally (for the whole project and not one file at a time). It's a pity that I'm not able to see "blame" if I'm compating two revisions of the whole project. –  pako Oct 15 '10 at 16:55
add comment

Checkout http://www.reviewboard.org/, it might help your case.

Checkout some comparison of code review tools

share|improve this answer
I love ReviewBoard -- but it won't be of any help doing what he wants to do. –  Dingo Oct 15 '10 at 19:50
I also don't see how ReviewBoard would be able to help my cause. –  pako Oct 15 '10 at 21:53
add comment

Your Answer


