svn externals on a file attempting to grab 'local' revision

[nhhandyman]

svn 1.7 using a svn 1.6 server

Under a directory build create an external reference to second repo something like

svn propset svn::externals 'common.xml http://repo.com/build/common.xml' .

I do an svn up

Updating '.':

Fetching external item into 'common.xml':
External at revision 198.

Note that if I do an svn info on http://repo.com/build/common.xml the file is at rev 259

There is no rev 198 in the external repo for svn to fetch.

I've tried even using -r259 on the extern then I get an error on the update:

svn: warning: W160013: '...../!svn/bc/259/..../build/common.xml' path not found

(.... to obscure actual path)

So, is svn:externals broken on a single file reference?

The external file is newly created but again, svn info of the reference works fine, but prior revs of it do not exist.

Thanks

[nhhandyman]

I have confirmed that the version that is fetched from the external repo is the version on the working (local) revision (so when that revision does not exist it fails without error).

Using -rLATEST or -rHEAD is not acceptable format.

How can I get it to fetch the LATEST in an external repo?

[nhhandyman]

seems like svn:externals in a individual file (in the case of 1.7 talking to a 1.6 (if that matters)) is just broken - the wrong rev is fetched every time.

[philip]

You said your file external references a second repository. Only directory externals can refer to a second repository. Checkout/update should give you a warning:

svn: warning: W200007: Unsupported external: url of file external 'http://localhost:8888/obj/repo2/A/B/f' is not in repository 'http://localhost:8888/obj/repo'

[nhhandyman]

Thanks for the response, but no such error was generated. It said it was trying to fetch the 'local' revision (what ever rev the local repo was at) and continued (not creating the file)

[philip]

Here is a complete example:

svnadmin create /tmp/repo
svn mkdir -mm --parents http://localhost:8888/tmp/repo/A/B
svnmucc -mm propset svn:externals '/tmp/repo2/A/B/f f' http://localhost:8888/tmp/repo/A/B
svnadmin create /tmp/repo2
svn import -mm /tmp/repo2/format http://localhost:8888/tmp/repo2/A/B/f
svn co http://localhost:8888/tmp/repo wc

The checkout gives me the "Unsupported external" warning using 1.6 and 1.7 clients.

Note I used the recommended form for externals these days: 'URL LOCALPATH' rather than 'LOCALPATH URL'. I also used a server-relative URL to make it shorter.