Auto-props can set a property name that regular 'propset' can't. Example: [[[ % subversion/svn/svn add \ --config-option 'config:miscellany:enable-auto-props=true' \ --config-option 'config:auto-props:*.t=*.c=bar' \ foo.t A foo.t % svn pl -v foo.t Properties on 'foo.t': *.c bar % svn propset '*.h' baz foo.t svn: E195011: '*.h' is not a valid Subversion property name zsh: exit 1 svn propset '*.h' baz foo.t ]]] It shouldn't be the case that '*.c' can be set and '*.h' can't be set. See email "Auto-props not validated" from Daniel Shahaf on 2014-04-09, archived at e.g. <http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2014-04/0143.shtml>.