Our group is considering moving to SVN. But, I can't seem to find a way to do the following:

I need to make minor tweaks locally to about 20 files in the repository w/o having SVN consider them "changed" and included in the commit. (Changes like communication time-outs and logging levels.)

Ideally I would want to merge the tweaked files to newer versions in the repository. (Keeping the tweaked local file up-to-date with committed changes form other users.)

I can't imagine we're unique in wanting/needing this.

Are there best practices around this type of use case?

One thing I'm considering is putting all the tweaked files into a branched "tweaked" working copy.

Then merging my tweaked files into my "official" working copy.

Then using a script, which compares the "tweaked" and "official" working copies, to update my ignore list. The script would also un-ignore and alert me to any files that had tweaks and other changes that, presumably, needed to be committed to the repository.

This seems kinda hacky and I can't imagine there's not a better way.