What is a cvs new-born file?

Question

I get this error during checkout:

cvs checkout: warning: new-born file.java has disappeared
cvs [checkout aborted]: cannot make directory : No such file or directory
cvs status: cannot rewrite CVS/Entries.Backup: Permission denied

I'm sure I have the proper permissions to this folder and it happens even when I try to check out to a new one. I'm also sure that these files exist in cvs..

my checkout command is:

cvs co -d dir -N -r(num) -r(num)... file file... and so on

What does this new-born thing mean?

Answer 1

new-born refers to a file that has been add-ed but not commit-ted yet, or that CVS is having trouble getting the file written locally.

My guess would be that there is a .cvs directory present that records an add but the file has since been deleted.

The additional errors you're seeing relate to permissions in the checkout directory - maybe you don't have write access to the checkout directory, umask is set incorrectly or there is a directory permission inheritance problem.

Answer 2

In my case it was caused by specifying tag which was not present on the file. Try to remove -r from the cmd line

Answer 3

I had a similar error message for a file that used to have ACLs that matched my account but no longer did.