Comment 3 for bug 255687

Bug 551758's original description has a minor variation on this: 'bzr annotate -rX FILE' fails when FILE in the working tree didn't exist in revision X, even though another file with the same filename did.

As I commented there, I think: annotate could/should notice that a file with the same path exists, and assume you meant that instead (and emit a warning about the possible confusion). I can't think of a situation where this would be less desirable than the current behaviour, but we could add a --strict or something if necessary.