Can't move directory that uses externals unless I --force?

I have a web site in our repository whose structure I want to
rearrange slightly: I want to move everything that's in the trunk now
into a new subdirectory "web." This should be easy:

$ cd working-copy-of-trunk
$ svn mkdir web

Now move everything into it:

$ svn mv foo web
$ svn mv bar web

etc.

One directory in this project, libs, contains one externals
definition. When I try to move libs, I get an unexpected message:

$ svn mv libs web
Performing status on external item at 'libs/some-library'
svn: Use --force to override this restriction
svn: Move will not be attempted unless forced
svn: 'libs/some-library' is not under version control

I tried moving the directory with --force in a test repository, and I
didn't see any ill effects... am I overlooking a potential problem
here, or should I feel safe in using the --force option to move this
directory? If it's safe, I'd consider the message and the refusal to
work without --force a bug.

Kalin Kozhuharov asked this in November 2005 and seems to have gotten
no response:

http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2005-11/0011.shtml

The behavior may have initially been introduced as a result of this
discussion:

http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2004-11/0930.shtml

And the resulting bug report:

http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2136

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Received on Tue Jan 31 11:36:51 2006