File externals into another external

I had a problem at work, where somebody created a tag for a library,
and then deleted a bunch of files I needed from that tag. When I
updated my svn:externals definition in my application to pull in the
new library version, those files went away. I tried to fix it in my
application, by creating file externals for those files, pointing to a
previous version, but placed into the same location they would have
been had the person not deleted them.

I know it is not possible to create a file external from a different
repository. But I expected this to work, because it is from the same
repository, and the directory already exists.

Is this limitation intentional, explained by this statement from
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.advanced.externals.html ?

"While directory externals can place the external directory at any
depth, and any missing intermediate directories will be created, file
externals must be placed into a working copy that is already checked
out."
Received on 2014-04-23 17:49:57 CEST