Re: rcs co stops processing files after an empty revision file is encountered

I can confirm this bug in RCS version 5.7 for GNU/Linux and AIX.   
Arthur's shell script likely gives ample /test coverage/ of the bug in  
RCS's `co' command.  However, here is a "shorter" summary of the  
commands necessary to illicit the bug:

$ touch file2 file3
$ rcs -i -t-file file1
RCS file: file1,v
done
$ ci -i -t-file file2 file3
file2,v  <--  file2
initial revision: 1.1
done
file3,v  <--  file3
initial revision: 1.1
done
$ co file1 file2 file3 ## This will work.
file1,v  -->  file1
writable file1 exists; remove it? [ny](n): y
no revisions present; generating empty revision 0.0
co: warning: no revisions, so nothing can be locked
done
file2,v  -->  file2
revision 1.1 (locked)
writable file2 exists; remove it? [ny](n): y
done
file3,v  -->  file3
revision 1.1 (locked)
writable file3 exists; remove it? [ny](n): y
done
$ co file2 file1 file3 ## This will *not* work.
file2,v  -->  file2
revision 1.1 (locked)
writable file2 exists; remove it? [ny](n): y
done
file1,v  -->  file1
no revisions present; generating empty revision 0.0
co: warning: no revisions, so nothing can be locked
co: output error: Bad file number
co aborted

Quoting Arthur Gabe <[email protected]>:

> # ----------------------- rcs co bug ------------------------
> #
> # when the rcs "co" command is given a file list which contains an
> # rcs file that has no revison, e.g., rcs -i file, it fails
> # with the following "Bad file number" error after failing to process the
> # empty rev file and does not check out any remaining files in the list.
> #
> #       no revisions present; generating empty revision 0.0
> #       co: output error: Bad file number
> #       co aborted
> #
> #  This only happens if the empty rev file is *not* first in the list,
> #
> # In this test, only the first two runs will succeed
> # because only those tests have the file with the empty revision first
> in the list
>
> for test in "1 2 3"   "1 3 2"   "2 1 3"   "2 3 1"   "3 1 2"   "3 2 1"
> do
>        echo "--------------- test: $test ---------------"
>        echo "remove all test files"
>        rm -f co_bug.*
>        echo "use rcs -i to create co_bug.1,v file"
>        rcs -i -t-test co_bug.1
>        echo "use ci to create empty co_bug.2,v and co_bug.3,v files"
>        touch co_bug.2 co_bug.3
>        ci -t-test co_bug.2 co_bug.3
>        rcsfiles=""
>        files=""
>        for ext in $test
>        do
>                rcsfiles="$rcsfiles co_bug.$ext,v"
>                files="$files co_bug.$ext"
>        done
>        echo "use co -f $rcsfiles to check out all files"
>        co -f  $rcsfiles
>        exit_status=$?
>        echo "co -f exit status : \$? = $exit_status"
>        echo "use ls -l to list all checked out files"
>        ls -l $files
> done >$0.out 2>&1