This issue will still exist for the following situations due to the workings of CVS (i.e. there's not an easy way to fix them in CVS plugin):
1. Checking out a single file into a workspace in non legacy mode - updates will checkout all sibling files and sub-modules (initial checkout will be ok)
2. Checking out a single file into a workspace with the local name set the same as the remote name - checks-out out the file into a folder named the same as the file name (e.g. remote name of /path/to/file.txt would cause file to be checked out into /path/to/file.txt/file.txt). Work around this by setting the local name to only include the module directory names (e.g checking out /path/to/file.txt should set local name as /path/to)
3. Checking out a single file with a remote name set - updates will checkout all sibling files and sub-modules.

Code changed in jenkins
User: Michael Clarke
Path:
src/main/java/hudson/scm/AbstractCvs.java
src/main/java/hudson/scm/CvsModule.java
http://jenkins-ci.org/commit/cvs-plugin/4822c4fbb2f1be2bcadd8853713f87d433ecbc84
Log:
[FIXED JENKINS-15132] Don't add '-d' flag on checkout if module name is not over-ridden

@Valentin Batz: Hi
I tried that but in my case it made a duplicate directory structure inside the original
e.g.
dir1/dir2/dir1/dir2/file

but it did checkout the file...

So i used "$WORKSPACE/" in the Local name and it worked

Thanks a lot

I've the same issue when upgrading from a 1.x to any 2.x version of the plugin. We are building a lot multi module projects where we checkout just some files from modules. There is a workaround, when you put the directory name of the file as local name it works.

Michael:
Thanks for prompt reply,

I'm checking out from the following dir structure

install
	mvbin	pkginfo
		<file2>
		<file3>
		<file4>
		<file5>
		<file6>
	mvbinpro	pkginfo
		<file2>
		<file3>
		<file4>
		<file5>
		<file6>
<parent2>
	<child_dir>	<grandchild_dir>

Configuration which works fine has module's as follows

CVS Plugin Version 1.6
Module: install/mvbin/pkginfo install/mvbinpro/pkginfo <parent2>/<child_dir>/<grandchild_dir>
NOTE: Whitespace separated list
NOTE: It used to retrieve each pkginfo file in proper directory structure

CVS Plugin Version 2.5
Module 1: install/mvbin
Module 2: install/mvbinpro
Module 3: <parent2>/<child_dir>/<grandchild_dir>
NOTE: Here 'Module 3' checks out properly
NOTE: In place of pkginfo file, i see pkginfo directories created for 'Module 1' & 'Module 2'

Configuration which doesn't work has module's as follows

CVS Plugin Version 2.5
Module 1: install/mvbin/pkginfo
Module 2: install/mvbinpro/pkginfo
Module 3: <parent2>/<child_dir>/<grandchild_dir>

As the mvbin and mvbinpro directories contain only a few files in my case, it doesn't make a big difference to checkout the directories, so i've used that as a workaround.

But if all i need is one file from a directory containing 2,000 files, then it'll be a big loss in terms of efficiency and time.

Thanks again & Regards
Deepak

Deepak: please confirm what you're seeing when it doesn't work. I suspect the first checkout works, but subsequent updates checkout all other files at the same level, and any subdirectories. Is this correct?