---
name: "SVK::Help::View"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "svk"
version: "2.0.2-3"
release: "Debian 5.0 (Lenny)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/SVK::Help::View"
---

# SVK::Help::View(3pm)

SVK::Help::View - Introduction to svk view support \[Views are a BETA-quality feature. We're very interested in bug reports  and feeback about them.\] svk allows you to define multiple different *view*s for an existing repository.\
 **DEFINING A VIEW** views are stored as property `"svk:view:NAME"` on a directory.  Suppose you have `"svk:view:ptest"` set on `"//project"`, you can refer to it by `"//^project/ptest"`.  That is, a caret, and then path holding the property, a slash, and the name of the view. You can now use `"//^project/ptest"` as a target for normal svk commands like ls, checkout and diff. Here is an example for the value of the property:

```
 &:/project/trunk
 -*
 dir1  dir1
 util  src/deep/util
```

The first line is the base of the view.  The `&:` sign means the root of a mirror, so the view can still be used even if other people mirrored the repository to a different path in their local repository. The second line means taking out all the content under the root.  And then take `"dir1"` back, stick the directory `"src/deep/util"` to `"util"` under the view.  So running `"svk ls //^project/ptest"` you should see:

```
 dir1/
 util/
```