Generally, it’s preferable to bind to libraries rather than executables when given the option. In my case, I needed SVN access from Python and couldn’t, at that time, find a confidence-inspiring library to work with. So, I wrote svn.

It turns out that there is a Subversion-sponsored Python project. It looks to be SWIG-based.

This comes from the python-svn Apt package under Ubuntu.

The Programmer’s Guide has the following examples, among others:

cat:

import pysvn
client = pysvn.Client()
file_content = client.cat('file.txt')

ls:

import pysvn
client = pysvn.Client()
entry_list = client.ls('.')

info:

import pysvn
client = pysvn.Client()
entry = client.info('.')