The file does not have any php tags because it was meant to be run as an executable shell script. Granted, it probably should have them so it won't throw code all over the screen when executed from a URL, but the point still stands that when you run it from a shell (like you should), the lack of tags is meaningless.

I use it as a seperate script on my Windows XP Mantis server, and when the rc2 files is run there is only a copy of the file in my log file. But when I use the rc1 file (or any earlier) it works. Something like this:

c:\php.exe mantis\core\checkin.php temp.svn > log.txt

So maybe it's meaningless but it's nessesary in some situations, so why change it ?

Re-added the <?php since it existed in 1.1.0rc1 and it was removed by mistake by the script that was used to change the headers. This is the same bug that hit the send_emails.php script.

Do SVN and CVS pass parameters the same way to core/checkin.php ?

I am wondering, because I had to tweak it quite a bit for CVS. Would it be possible to fork off checkin_svn.php and checkin_cvs.php out of it?