Debugging a website while using SVN?

Question

Work organization

Hello!
A question for web developers (in my case, CodeIgniter + MySQL are used; the site itself is on virtual hosting, and the SVN repository is on SVN hosting) - how do you debug the project?
Suppose the involved specialists (programmers, layout designers, etc.) create working copies from the repository.
It is desirable to debug the project online, but the main site (domain) cannot be touched.
What course of action can be recommended? Update (check out) from the repository, then make changes, then upload directly to the test server via FTP, and when everything is ready and debugged, only then commit?
How to provide editing of the database structure? Is it mandatory to use an ORM (like Doctrine) or can it be omitted?
Thank you.

Answer 1

IMHO, it is most convenient when each developer in the team has a domain like nickname.dev.site.com. These hosts are located either at the developer's machine or on a small server in the office. All commits go to dev.site.com, where testers and management review changes. After everyone is happy, the code from dev.site.com is uploaded to site.com.

Answer 2

A commit hook in svn that exports to a test server. Debugging post - branching the code into a branch and exporting the branch to the production server.

Answer 3

What is the problem with SVN? As standard, mysqldump, rsync, a couple of scripts and a test server is ready.
For specific settings, I create a separate branch in my git, if necessary.

Answer 4

Testing on the svn server directly.