Why is svn propset failing with a cryptic path colon error on mergeinfo props?

Question

Modifying the mergeinfo property was failing while other properties were easily set.

D:\>svn propset "svn:mergeinfo" mypropvalue myfile.txt
svn: E200020: Pathname not terminated by ':'

Answer 1

The problem was that SVN validates mergeinfo properties. It's upset that the value itself does not look like a mergeinfo property which is a colon separated key value file.

D:\>svn propset "svn:mergeinfo" mybranchname:1 myfile.txt
property 'svn:mergeinfo' set on 'myfile.txt'