I have created an svn repo on my web host server and successfully commit files to it and updated files from it but I can't seem to actually find the files on the server!
My svn repo is in ~/svn/my-first-repo/ which contains the following: ./ ../ README.txt conf/ db/ format hooks/ locks/.
But where are the files I'm actually versioning?!
It's definitely worked because I was able to checkout the same remote repo into another local directory and all the files magically appeared! As if from nowhere...
The files themselves are within the repository. If you want to see them, then you need to perform a checkout. Because subversion keeps complete change history for all files within your project, you will never see a fully reconstituted working copy underneath the repository's folder structure.
Basically, what's happening is a "versioned filesystem" that sits on top of your host filesystem. You should probably read up on the Subversion filesystem in more detail so you can understand exactly what is happening when you commit changes to your repository.