The pop command will retrieve the version of the e-link from the last time you ran update or your last promote operation, whichever came last. It tries to ensure all versions in your workspace are at the requested UpdateLevel. So the question is, why does this version of the e-link not point to the version of the target you expect to see?

So I think I left some details out earlier. I am not popping into a workspace - here is the pop command I am using:

accurev pop -v stream_name -L $WORKSPACE -O -R ./folder_containing_e_link

When I do this, I end up with

$WORKSPACE/folder_containing_e_link

Output is like this:

Creating dir: /./folder_containing_e_link

Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file1
Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file2
Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file3
Failed to create link for element /./folder_containing_e_link/e_link_file

The $WORKSPACE at this point has all files except the e-link

If instead I pop like this:

accurev pop -v stream_name -L $WORKSPACE -O -R ./folder_containing_e_link ./folder_containing_target

I end up with both folders in $WORKSPACE. Output is like this:

Creating dir: /./folder_containing_e_link
Creating dir: /./folder_containing_target

Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file1
Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file2
Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file3

Populating element /./folder_containing_target/target

Linked file /./folder_containing_e_link/e_link_file

In this case I now have two copies of the target, one in each folder.

So, my question is, how can I force accurev to pop the target of the e-link without explicitly popping the target?

So I think I left some details out earlier. I am not popping into a workspace - here is the pop command I am using:

accurev pop -v stream_name -L $WORKSPACE -O -R ./folder_containing_e_link

When I do this, I end up with

$WORKSPACE/folder_containing_e_link

Output is like this:

Creating dir: /./folder_containing_e_link

Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file1
Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file2
Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file3
Failed to create link for element /./folder_containing_e_link/e_link_file

The $WORKSPACE at this point has all files except the e-link

If instead I pop like this:

accurev pop -v stream_name -L $WORKSPACE -O -R ./folder_containing_e_link ./folder_containing_target

I end up with both folders in $WORKSPACE. Output is like this:

Creating dir: /./folder_containing_e_link
Creating dir: /./folder_containing_target

Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file1
Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file2
Populating element /./folder_containing_e_link/file3

Populating element /./folder_containing_target/target

Linked file /./folder_containing_e_link/e_link_file

In this case I now have two copies of the target, one in each folder.

So, my question is, how can I force accurev to pop the target of the e-link without explicitly popping the target?

The -L option is used to specify the destination. Your example has it as $WORKSPACE. It should not be a folder inside a workspace.

Here's something that should work. Create a new folder on your machine, open a command window and CHDIR to this folder. Then type in the following command (including dots):

accurev pop –L . –R –O –v <stream_name> .

I apologize for the confusion. The $WORKSPACE variable is not an accurev workspace but just a regular directory. In my example I am popping a bunch of stuff to create an RPM and the $WORKSPACE variable just points to the present working directory.

Your example works perfectly, except that it pops the entire stream. In my use case, I have a stream with several thousand files. The pop on the entire stream can take several minutes and I wish to avoid this. 

I'd recommend using a list file. You'll get only what you specify, nothing else. See -l <list-file> for the pop command in the CLI guide. It is best to use depot-relative pathnames in the file.