version control - Create SVN controlled project in-situ -

i have project sitting in archive. project , files provided else. project not use version control system. want unpack project , adorn versioning. want in-place can make changes , svn diff see changes (and create diff patch).

when try place versioning on unpacked library, following:

$ svnadmin create svnadmin: e205000: repository argument required 

and:

$ svnadmin create . svnadmin: e200011: repository creation failed svnadmin: e200011: not create top-level directory svnadmin: e200011: '.' exists , non-empty 

and:

$ svnadmin create `pwd` svnadmin: e200011: repository creation failed svnadmin: e200011: not create top-level directory svnadmin: e200011: '/home/jeffrey/cryptlib-beta' exists , non-empty 

i don't want set svn server or jump through other hoops checking out myself (or other steps make no sense regular user concerned changes/differences).

is possible create svn version controlled project in-situ? if so, know commands?

thanks in advance.

1. you can't create repository in non-empty directory
2. you can't avoid checkout repository working copy @ least once
3. you can don't setup special svn-server , use file:/// protocol access repository

during setup have use 3 directories. let name source, repo, work. later you'll use repo , work

process step-by-step

• cd /some/path
• mkdir source
• unpack archive source
• cd /some/another/path
• mkdir repo
• cd repo
• svnadmin create .
• cd /some/path/source
• svn import file:////some/another/path/repo -m "initial import"
• cd /some/another-again/path
• mkdir work
• cd work
• svn co file:///some/another/path/repo .
• rm -r /some/path/source

edit files in work, diff base-version, if needed