There is a difference how svn cat works for deleted files. For deleted file commandline `svn cat -r xxx <full_url>` will give error, but 'svn cat <full_url>@xxx` will cat file from the past.
Unfortunately this method will not cat deleted file.
(PECL svn >= 0.1.0)
svn_cat — Returns the contents of a file in a repository
$repos_url, int $revision_no = ?): string
Returns the contents of the URL repos_url to
a file in the repository, optionally at revision number
revision_no.
repos_urlString URL path to item in a repository.
revision_noInteger revision number of item to retrieve, default is the HEAD revision.
Returns the string contents of the item from the repository on
success, and false on failure.
示例 #1 Basic example
This example retrieves the contents of a file at revision 28:
<?php
$contents = svn_cat('http://www.example.com/svnroot/calc/gui.c', 28)
?>此函数是实验性的。此函数的表象，包括名称及其相关文档都可能在未来的 PHP 发布版本中未通知就被修改。使用本函数风险自担。
There is a difference how svn cat works for deleted files. For deleted file commandline `svn cat -r xxx <full_url>` will give error, but 'svn cat <full_url>@xxx` will cat file from the past.
Unfortunately this method will not cat deleted file.Just to add to Adam's comment, when retrieving a file contents I found I got the best results using the same revision in both places every time; ie. as follows:
<?php
svn_cat ($url.'@'.$revision, $revision);
?>
The one appended to the URL is the peg revision, and the one in the second paramer is the operative revision.
This seems to cover all the bases.