Using svn:externals - doesn't auto-update Tortoise status?

Question

(I'm an svn newbie, so I don't know if what I'm trying to do is even possible but...)

I've set up a simple test repository to try a few things out. At present it looks like this:

TestSVN
  |--Folder A
  |     |--FileA.txt
  |     |--FileB.txt
  |--Folder B
        |--FileB.txt

FileB exists in Folder A as an svn:external link. So this works as I expect, when I update Folder A it pulls in the current version of FileB.

Now lets say I change FileB in Folder A and commit the change. I would expect when looking at my working copy of Folder B that Tortoise would indicate that my working copy of FileB (in Folder B) is out of date. Conversely, if I change FileB in Folder B, I'd expect to see that my FileB in Folder A is not the same as the version in the repository. It doesn't appear to do this - Tortoise shows that both working copies are 'OK', even though they are the 'same file' and are different.

Am I misunderstanding how SVN works in general, or is this actually broken?

Answer 1

Am I misunderstanding how SVN works in general

Yes

And "yes" for meaning|using|changing of overlay icons in TortoiseSVN

Working Copy of any repository is autonomous system most time and does not communicate with repository freely (only on demand for checkout|commit|status)

Overlay icons are only indicators of $CURRENT state of object vs $VANILLA state (ie revision, into which WC was updated|checkouted), and vanilla-state stored also locally in WC