I have a version of SVN on my system in /usr/bin/svn. This is too old to use with some repositories so I compiled a newer version in /home/user/built/bin/svn which works fine. I added this to my PATH so it should be run first.
Typing
which svn
produces
/home/user/built/bin/svn
however typing
svn --version
reveals that it us using the old version still. if I run
/home/user/built/bin/svn --version
then the correct version is displayed.
Since the custom version is first in my $PATH, and which lists it first why is the older version being invoked when I run svn? I thought which used your $PATH to find executables in the same fashion as the shell?
Use
type svn
to figure out (a) what it is, (b) where it is or what its definition is. Also check that PATH really contains what you think it does
echo $PATH