SVN 1.9.7: issues with symlinks to subdir of working copy

I have a directory containing links to SVN directories that I want to update.

In some cases the link is to the root of the workspace, and in some
cases the link is to a subdir.

$ mkdir TEST
$ cd TEST
$ svn co http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/trunk subversion
$ ln -s subversion top
$ ln -s subversion/tools tools
$ ls -l

drwxr-xr-x 26 x x 884 12 Sep 14:48 subversion
lrwxr-xr-x 1 x x 17 12 Sep 14:49 tools -> subversion/tools/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 x x 10 12 Sep 14:49 top -> subversion

The following commands work fine:

$ svn info
...
$ svn log tools
...

However for other commands there are some issues.

$ svn status subversion top tools
svn: warning: W155007: '/srv/TEST/tools/backup' is not a working copy

$ svn -u status subversion top tools
Status against revision: 1808117
~ 1808117 top
Status against revision: 1808117
svn: warning: W155007: '/srv/TEST' is not a working copy

Note the strange path reference.

$ svn update subversion top tools
Updating 'subversion':
At revision 1808117.
Updating 'top':
At revision 1808117.
Skipped 'tools'
Summary of updates:
  Updated 'subversion' to r1808117.
  Updated 'top' to r1808117.
Summary of conflicts:
  Skipped paths: 1

Note: the output does not say why tools is skipped

$ svn update tools
Skipped 'tools'
svn: E155007: None of the targets are working copies

Whereas:

$ cd tools
/srv/TEST/tools
$ svn update .
Updating '.':
At revision 1808117.

These tests were done on

$ svn --version
svn, version 1.9.7 (r1800392)
   compiled Aug 10 2017, 21:32:31 on x86_64-apple-darwin16.3.0

Is this a known bug?
I could not find anything in the database.
Received on 2017-09-12 16:13:12 CEST