RE: solving the selective update of non-existent directories

> How is this communicated to the robot?

By telling the robot the filename and the version number. I have created a 
small self-contained example which reproduces the problem as clearly as I 
can:

#!/bin/bash

# Create the CVS repo
export CVSROOT=~/cvs_repo
mkdir $CVSROOT
pushd $CVSROOT
cvs init
popd

# Create something to import
mkdir -p foo/d1/d2/d3/d4
pushd foo
touch d1/f1 d1/d2/f2 d1/d2/d3/f3 d1/d2/d3/d4/f4
cvs import -m "Import" foo mdanjou start
popd
rm -rf foo

# First checkout
cvs co foo

# Tag the "approved" files only
pushd foo
cvs tag GOOD_CODE d1/f1 d1/d2/f2
popd

# The robot starts off with the approved files
cvs co -d robot_sandbox -r GOOD_CODE foo

# The robot is told "get release x.y of file d1/d2/d3/d4/f4"
# the exact value of x.y is irrelevant, it could be anything
# as long as it exists in CVS. In this example we only have
# version 1.1, so we use that for now:
pushd robot_sandbox
cvs up -r 1.1 d1/d2/d3/d4/f4   ## THIS FAILS, WHY?
popd

Why does this command fail? Is this a bug?

BTW, I see commitid in the NEWS for cvs 1.12.12, but 1.12 is not declared 
stable. I use CVS 1.11.17 (client/server) on linux.

Thanks,
Martin