Why does svn patch fail for externals on add/delete?

Please Cc responses as I am not subscribed to the list.

I'm primarily a Tortoise user under Windows, but have recently needed to start using the command line client more frequently. Our development environment heavily leverages externals and developers often distribute patches as a means for code review. With the command line client I've discovered that "svn patch" fails with an E155005: No write-lock error when applying a patch which adds or deletes files which span externals. I've observed this with both 1.7.7 and 1.8.10. I've had no problems when applying such patches with the Tortoise patch mechanism. A trivial example for clarity:

Assume the following wc structure:

test1/
    fileA.txt
    externals/
        test2/
            fileB.txt

[gmyers_at_pc test1]$ svn -v status
                 2 2 gmyers .
                 2 2 gmyers externals
X externals/test2
                 2 1 gmyers fileA.txt

Performing status on external item at 'externals/test2':
                 1 1 gmyers /home/gmyers/svnadmin_test/demo/test1/externals/test2
                 1 1 gmyers /home/gmyers/svnadmin_test/demo/test1/externals/test2/fileB.txt

Now assume I have three patch files which perform the following operations: 1) Add a file file2.dat to externals/test2/, 2)Delete externals/test2/fileB.txt, 3) Modify externals/test2/fileB.txt. The patches were all generated by performing the desired task and dumping the result from svn diff.

[gmyers_at_pc test1]$ cat add.patch
Index: externals/test2/file2.dat
===================================================================
--- externals/test2/file2.dat (revision 0)
+++ externals/test2/file2.dat (working copy)
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+This is file2.

[gmyers_at_pc test1]$ cat delete.patch
Index: externals/test2/fileB.txt
===================================================================
--- externals/test2/fileB.txt (revision 1)
+++ externals/test2/fileB.txt (working copy)
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-This is fileB.txt

[gmyers_at_pc test1]$ cat modify.patch
Index: externals/test2/fileB.txt
===================================================================
--- externals/test2/fileB.txt (revision 1)
+++ externals/test2/fileB.txt (working copy)
@@ -1 +1,3 @@
This is fileB.txt
+
+Add some text.

Now I'll attempt to apply the patches. The "add" patch returns E155005 and although it creates the new file2.dat file it fails to add it to svn:

[gmyers_at_pc test1]$ svn patch add.patch
svn: E155005: No write-lock in '/home/gmyers/svnadmin_test/demo/test1/externals/test2'

The "delete" patch returns E155005 and does nothing:

[gmyers_at_pc test1]$ svn patch delete.patch
svn: E155005: No write-lock in '/home/gmyers/svnadmin_test/demo/test1/externals/test2'

The "modify" patch succeeds as expected:

[gmyers_at_pc test1]$ svn patch modify.patch
U externals/test2/fileB.txt

I'm wondering if this is a bug or the intended behavior? If it is intended then what is the reasoning behind the apparent need for a lock only for adds/deletes to externals but not for modify operations? Is there any sort of recommended workaround for this issue?

Thanks,
Griffin Myers
Received on 2014-11-04 15:41:37 CET