Code dumping

First you make a dump file of the repository. You could play around on your company server, but if something goes wrong, Mr Spacely will be angry with you and you do not want that. So to be on the safe side, you replicate the server repository on your own computer.

You might be able to use svk for this, if you are used to it. I will not cover that here. If the name does not ring a bell, never mind.

Instead I assume that you actually have access to that server and are allowed to use the svnadmin command. So you login to that server and (quietly if you want to) dump the complete repository to a dump file. That would look something like this:

svnadmin dump --quiet /var/lib/svn/spacely > spacely.dump

Then you copy that file to your own computer and you can now safely play with it without having to say sorry to Mr Spacely when you make a mistake that kills the complete repository. Just a precaution.