diff --git a/contrib/ChangeLog b/contrib/ChangeLog
index af3c1689b55..e4423324e7c 100644
--- a/contrib/ChangeLog
+++ b/contrib/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+1999-12-18  Gerald Pfeifer  <pfeifer@dbai.tuwien.ac.at>
+
+	* newcvsroot: Add check on the number of command-line arguments.
+	Add usage.
+
 Sun Nov 28 00:41:44 1999  William Bader (william@nscs.fast.net)
 
 	* gcc_update: Allow patches compressed by bzip2.
diff --git a/contrib/newcvsroot b/contrib/newcvsroot
index 4ce13526f48..d264bbf7de3 100755
--- a/contrib/newcvsroot
+++ b/contrib/newcvsroot
@@ -6,6 +6,11 @@
 
 # Usage: newcvsroot <newroot> <modulename> <toplevel directory>
 
+if [ $# != 3 ]; then
+    echo "usage: `basename $0` <newroot> <modulename> <toplevel directory>"
+    exit 1
+fi
+
 root=$1; shift
 module=$1; shift
 topdir=$1; shift