1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2011-08-13
2 Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
5 version ?.? - ?, 201?-??-??
9 ** --owner and --group names and numbers
11 The --owner and --group options now accept operands of the form
12 NAME:NUM, so that you can specify both symbolic name and numeric ID
13 for owner and group. In these options, NAME no longer needs to be
14 present in the current host's user and group databases.
16 version 1.26 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2011-03-12
20 ** Fix the --verify option, which broke in version 1.24.
22 ** Fix storing long sparse file names in PAX archives.
24 ** Fix correctness of --atime-preserve=replace
26 tar --atime-preserve=replace no longer tries to restore atime of
29 ** Work around POSIX incompatibilities on FreeBSD, NetBSD and Tru64
31 ** Fix bug with --one-file-system --listed-incremental
33 When invoked with these two options, tar 1.25 would add only the
34 top-level directory to the archive, but not its contents.
37 version 1.25 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-11-07
39 * Fix extraction of empty directories with the -C option in effect.
40 * Fix extraction of device nodes.
41 * Make sure name matching occurs before eventual name transformation.
43 Tar 1.24 changed the ordering of name matching and name transformation
44 so that the former saw already transformed file names. This made it
45 impossible to match file names in certain cases. It is fixed now.
47 * Fix the behavior of tar -x --overwrite on hosts lacking O_NOFOLLOW.
49 * Improve the testsuite.
51 * Alternative decompression programs.
53 If extraction from a compressed archive fails because the corresponding
54 compression program is not installed and the following two conditions
55 are met, tar retries extraction using an alternative decompressor:
57 1. Another compression program supported by tar is able to handle this
59 2. The compression program was not explicitly requested in the command
60 line by the use of such options as -z, -j, etc.
62 For example, if `compress' is not available, tar will try `gzip'.
65 version 1.24 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-10-24
67 * The --full-time option.
69 New command line option `--full-time' instructs tar to output file
70 time stamps to the full resolution.
74 ** More reliable directory traversal when creating archives
76 Tar now checks for inconsistencies caused when a file system is
77 modified while tar is creating an archive. In the new approach, tar
78 maintains a cache of file descriptors to directories, so it uses more
79 file descriptors than before, but it adjusts to system limits on
80 the number of file descriptors. Tar also takes more care when
81 a file system is modified while tar is extracting from an archive.
83 The new checks are implemented via the openat and related calls
84 standardized by POSIX.1-2008. On an older system where these calls do
85 not exist or do not return useful results, tar emulates the calls at
86 some cost in efficiency and reliability.
88 ** Symbolic link attributes
90 When extracting symbolic links, tar now restores attributes such as
91 last-modified time and link permissions, if the operating system
92 supports this. For example, recent versions of the Linux kernel
93 support setting times on symlinks, and some BSD kernels also support
96 ** --dereference consistency
98 The --dereference (-h) option now applies to files that are copied
99 into or out of archives, independently of other options. For example,
100 if F is a symbolic link and archive.tar contains a regular-file member
101 also named F, "tar --overwrite -x -f archive.tar F" now overwrites F
102 itself, rather than the file that F points to. (To overwrite the file
103 that F points to, add the --dereference (-h) option.) Formerly,
104 --dereference was intended to apply only when using the -c option, but
105 the implementation was not consistent.
107 Also, the --dereference option no longer affects accesses to other
108 files, such as archives and time stamp files. Symbolic links to these
109 files are always followed. Previously, the links were usually but not
112 ** Spurious error diagnostics on broken pipe.
114 When receiving SIGPIPE, tar would exit with error status and
115 "write error" diagnostics. In particular, this occurred if
116 invoked as in the example below:
118 tar tf archive.tar | head -n 1
122 `Tar --remove-files' failed to remove a directory which contained
123 symlinks to another files within that directory.
125 ** --test-label behavior
127 In case of a mismatch, `tar --test-label LABEL' exits with code 1,
128 not 2 as it did in previous versions.
130 The `--verbose' option used with `--test-label' provides additional
133 Several volume labels may be specified in a command line, e.g.:
135 tar --test-label -f archive 'My volume' 'New volume' 'Test volume'
137 In this case, tar exits with code 0 if any one of the arguments
138 matches the actual volume label.
140 ** --label used with --update
142 The `--label' option can be used with `--update' to prevent accidental
143 update of an archive:
145 tar -rf archive --label 'My volume' .
147 This did not work in previous versions, in spite of what the docs said.
149 ** --record-size and --tape-length (-L) options
151 Usual size suffixes are allowed for these options. For example,
152 -L10k stands for a 10 kilobyte tape length.
154 ** Fix dead loop on extracting existing symlinks with the -k option.
157 version 1.23 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-03-10
159 * Record size autodetection
161 When listing or extracting archives, the actual record size is
162 reported only if the archive is read from a device (as opposed
163 to regular files and pipes).
167 When a read-only operation (e.g. --list or --extract) is requested
168 on a regular file, tar attemtps to speed up accesses by using lseek.
170 * New command line option `--warning'
172 The `--warning' command line option allows to suppress or enable
173 particular warning messages during `tar' run. It takes a single
174 argument (a `keyword'), identifying the class of warning messages
175 to affect. If the argument is prefixed with `no-', such warning
176 messages are suppressed. For example,
178 tar --warning=no-alone-zero-block -x -f archive
180 suppresses the output of `A lone zero block' diagnostics, which is
181 normally issued if `archive' ends with a single block of zeros.
183 See Tar Manual, section 3.9 "Controlling Warning Messages", for a
186 * New command line option `--level'
188 The `--level=N' option sets the incremental dump level N. It
189 is valid when used in conjunction with the -c and --listed-incremental
190 options. So far the only meaningful value for N is 0. The
191 `--level=0' option forces creating the level 0 dump, by truncating
192 the snapshot file if it exists.
194 * Files removed during incremental dumps
196 If a file or directory is removed while incremental dump is
197 in progress, tar exact actions depend on whether this file
198 was explicitly listed in the command line, or was found
199 during file system scan.
201 If the file was explicitly listed in the command line, tar
202 issues error message and exits with the code 2, meaning
205 Otherwise, if the file was found during the file system scan,
206 tar issues a warning, saying "File removed before we read it",
207 and sets exit code to 1, which means "some files differ".
208 If the --warning=no-file-removed option is given, no warning
209 is issued and exit code remains 0.
211 * Modification times of PAX extended headers.
213 Modification times in ustar header blocks of extended headers
214 are set to mtimes of the corresponding archive members. This
215 can be overridden by the
217 --pax-opion='exthdr.mtime=STRING'
219 command line option. The STRING is either number of seconds since
220 the Epoch or a `Time reference' (see below).
222 Modification times in ustar header blocks of global extended
223 headers are set to the time when tar was invoked.
225 This can be overridden by the
227 --pax-opion='globexthdr.mtime=STRING'
229 command line option. The STRING is either number of seconds since
230 the Epoch or a `Time reference' (see below).
232 * Time references in --pax-option argument.
234 Any value from the --pax-option argument that is enclosed in a pair
235 of curly braces represents a time reference. The string between the
236 braces is understood either as a textual time representation, as described in
237 chapter 7, "Date input formats", of the Tar manual, or as a name of
238 an existing file, starting with `/' or `.'. In the latter
239 case, it is replaced with the modification time of that file.
241 * Environment of --to-command script.
243 The environment passed to the --to-command script is extended with
244 the following variables:
246 TAR_VERSION GNU tar version number
247 TAR_ARCHIVE The name of the archive
248 TAR_VOLUME Ordinal number of the volume
249 TAR_FORMAT Format of the archive
250 TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR Current blocking factor
253 ** Fix handling of hard link targets by -c --transform.
254 ** Fix hard links recognition with -c --remove-files.
255 ** Fix restoring files from backup (debian bug #508199).
256 ** Correctly restore modes and permissions on existing directories.
257 ** The --remove-files option removes files only if they were
258 succesfully stored in the archive.
259 ** Fix storing and listing of the volume labels in POSIX format.
260 ** Improve algorithm for splitting long file names (ustar
262 ** Fix possible memory overflow in the rmt client code (CVE-2010-0624).
265 version 1.22 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2009-03-05
267 * Support for xz compression
269 Tar uses xz for compression if one of the following conditions is met:
271 1. The option --xz or -J (see below) is used.
272 2. The xz binary is set as compressor using --use-compress-program option.
273 3. The file name of the archive being created ends in `.xz' and
274 auto-compress option (-a) is used.
276 Xz is used for decompression if one of the following conditions is met:
278 1. The option --xz or -J is used.
279 2. The xz binary is set as compressor using --use-compress-program option.
280 3. The file is recognized as xz compressed stream data.
282 * Short option -J reassigned as a short equivalent of --xz
286 The -I option is assigned as a short equivalent for
287 --use-compress-program.
289 * The --no-recursive option works in incremental mode.
292 version 1.21 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2008-12-27
294 * New short option -J
296 A shortcut for --lzma.
300 * New option --no-auto-compress
302 Cancels the effect of previous --auto-compress (-a) option.
304 * New option --no-null
306 Cancels the effect of previous --null option.
308 * Compressed format recognition
310 If tar is unable to determine archive compression format, it falls
311 back to using archive suffix to determine it.
315 Using --exclude-vcs handles also files used internally by Bazaar,
318 * Transformation scope flags
320 Name transformation expressions understand additional flags that
321 control type of archive members affected by them. The flags are:
324 Apply transformation to regular archive members.
327 Apply transformation to symbolic link targets.
330 Apply transformation to hard link targets.
332 Corresponding upper-case letters negate the meaning, so that
333 `H' means ``do not apply transformation to hard link targets.''
335 The scope flags are listed in the third part of an `s' expression,
338 tar --transform 's|^|/usr/local/|S'
340 Default is `rsh', which means that transformations are applied to
341 both regular archive members and to the targets of symbolic and hard
342 links. If several transform expressions are used, the default flags
343 can be changed using `flags=' statement before the expressions, e.g.:
345 tar --transform 'flags=S;s|^|/usr/local/|S'
349 ** The --null option disabled handling of tar options in list files. This
351 ** Fixed record size autodetection. If the detected record size differs from
352 the expected value (either default one, or the one set from the
353 command line), tar always prints a warning if verbosity level is set
354 to 1 or greater, i.e. if either -t or -v option is given.
358 version 1.20 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2008-04-14
360 * New option --auto-compress (-a)
362 With --create, selects compression algorithm basing on the suffix
363 of the archive file name.
367 Selects LZMA compression algorithm
369 * New option --hard-dereference
371 During archive creation, dereferences hard links and stores the files
372 they refer to, instead of creating usual hard link members (type '1').
374 * New option --checkpoint-action
376 This action allows to specify an action to be executed upon hitting a
377 checkpoint. Recognized actions are: dot, echo (the default),
378 echo=string, ttyout=string, exec=cmdline, and sleep=value. Any number
379 of `--checkpoint-action' options can be specified, the actions will be
380 executed in order of their appearance in the command line. See
381 chapter 3.8 "Checkpoints" for a complete description.
383 * New options --no-check-device, --check-device.
385 The `--no-check-device' option disables comparing device numbers during
386 preparatory stage of an incremental dump. This allows to avoid
387 creating full dumps if the device numbers change (e.g. when using an
390 The `--check-device' option enables comparing device numbers. This is
391 the default. This option is provided to undo the effect of the previous
392 `--no-check-device' option, e.g. if it was set in TAR_OPTIONS
393 environment variable.
395 * The --transform option.
397 Any number of `--transform' options can be given in the command line.
398 The specified transformations will be applied in turn.
400 The argument to `--transform' option can be a list of replace
401 expressions, separated by a semicolon (as in `sed').
403 Filename transformations are applied to symbolic link targets
404 during both creation and extraction. Tar 1.19 used them only
407 For a detailed description, see chapter 6.7 "Modifying File and Member
410 * Info (end-of-volume) scripts
412 The value of the blocking factor is made available to info and
413 checkpoint scripts via environment variable TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR.
415 * Incremental archives
417 Improved (sped up) extracting from incremental archives.
420 ** Fix bug introduced in version 1.19: tar refused to update non-existing
424 version 1.19 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-10-10
426 * New option --exclude-vcs
428 Excludes directories and files, created by several widely used version
429 control systems, e.g. "CVS/", ".svn/", etc.
431 * --exclude-tag and --exclude-cache options
433 The following options now work with incremental archives as well:
441 * Fix handling of renamed files in listed incremental archives.
443 Previous versions always stored absolute file names in rename
444 records, even if -P was not used. This is fixed: rename records
445 contain file names processed in accordance with the command line
448 * Fix --version output.
450 * Recognition of broken archives.
452 When supplied an archive smaller than 512 bytes in reading mode (-x,
453 -t), the previous version of tar silently ignored it, exiting with
454 code 0. It is fixed. Tar now issues the following diagnostic message:
455 'This does not look like a tar archive', and exits with code 2.
457 * Fix double-dot recognition in archive member names in case of duplicate '/.'.
459 * Fix file padding in case of truncation of the input file to zero size.
462 version 1.18 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-06-29
464 * Licensed under the GPLv3
466 * Fixed several bugs in the testsuite
469 version 1.17 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-06-08
471 * Fix archivation of sparse files in posix mode. Previous versions padded
472 sparse members with spurious zero blocks.
474 * Fix operation of --verify --listed-incremental. Version 1.16.1 produced
475 a full dump when both options were given.
477 * Fix --occurrence. In previous versions it continued scanning the archive
478 even though all requested members has already been extracted.
480 * Scope of --transform and --strip-components options.
482 In addition to affecting regular archive members, the --transform
483 option affects hard and soft link targets and the --strip-components
484 option affects hard link targets as well.
486 * End-of-volume script can send the new volume name to tar by writing
487 it to the file descriptor stored in the environment variable `TAR_FD'.
490 version 1.16.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-12-09
492 * New option --exclude-tag allows to specify "exclusion tag files", i.e.
493 files whose presence in a directory means that the directory should not
496 * The --exclude-cache option excludes directories that contain the
497 CACHEDIR.TAG file from being archived. Previous versions excluded
498 directory contents only, while the directories themselves were
499 still added to the archive.
501 * Support for reading ustar type 'N' header logical records has been removed.
502 This GNU extension was generated only by very old versions of GNU 'tar'.
503 Unfortunately its implementation had security holes; see
504 <http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclosure/2006-11/0344.html>.
505 We don't expect that any tar archives in practical use have type 'N'
506 records, but if you have one and you trust its contents, you can
507 decode it with GNU tar 1.16 or earlier.
509 * Race conditions have been fixed that in some cases briefly allowed
510 files extracted by 'tar -x --same-owner' (or plain 'tar -x', when
511 running as root) to be accessed by users that they shouldn't have been.
514 version 1.16 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-10-21
516 * After creating an archive, tar exits with code 1 if some files were
517 changed while being read. Previous versions exited with code 2 (fatal
518 error), and only if some files were truncated while being archived.
520 * New option --mtime allows to set modification times for all archive
521 members during creation.
524 ** Avoid running off file descriptors when using multiple -C options.
525 ** tar --index-file=FILE --file=- sent the archive to FILE, and
526 the listing to stderr.
529 version 1.15.91 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-06-16
531 * Incompatible changes
535 Previous versions of GNU tar assumed shell-style globbing when
536 extracting from or listing an archive. For example:
540 would extract all files whose names end in '.c'. This behavior
541 was not documented and was incompatible with traditional tar
542 implementations. Therefore, starting from this version, GNU tar
543 no longer uses globbing by default. For example, the above invocation
544 is now interpreted as a request to extract from the archive the file
547 To treat member names as globbing patterns, use --wildcards option.
548 If you wish tar to mimic the behavior of versions up to 1.15.90,
549 add --wildcards to the value of the environment variable TAR_OPTIONS.
551 The exact way in which tar interprets member names is controlled by the
552 following command line options:
554 --wildcards use wildcards
555 --anchored patterns match file name start
556 --ignore-case ignore case
557 --wildcards-match-slash wildcards match `/'
559 Each of these options has a '--no-' counterpart that disables its
560 effect (e.g. --no-wildcards).
562 These options affect both the interpretation of member names from
563 command line and that of the exclusion patterns (given with --exclude
564 and --exclude-from options). The defaults are:
566 1. For member names: --no-wildcards --anchored
567 2. For exclusion patterns: --wildcards --no-anchored --wildcards-match-slash
569 The options can appear multiple times in the command line, thereby
570 changing the way command line arguments are interpreted. For example,
571 to use case-insensitive matching in exclude patterns and to revert to
572 case-sensitive matching for the rest of command line, one could write:
574 tar xf foo.tar --ignore-case --exclude-from=FILE --no-ignore-case file.name
576 ** Short option -l is now an alias of --check-links option, which complies
577 with UNIX98. This ends the transition period started with version 1.14.
581 ** New option --transform allows to transform file names before storing them
582 in the archive or member names before extracting. The option takes a
583 sed replace expression as its argument. For example,
585 tar cf foo.tar --transform 's,^,prefix/,'
587 will add 'prefix/' to all file names stored in foo.tar.
589 ** --strip-components option works when deleting and comparing. In previous
590 versions it worked only with --extract.
592 ** New option --show-transformed-names enables display of transformed file
593 or archive. It generalizes --show-stored-names option, introduced in
594 1.15.90. In particular, when creating an archive in verbose mode, it lists
595 member names as stored in the archive, i.e., with any eventual prefixes
596 removed and file name transformations applied. The option is useful,
597 for example, while comparing `tar cv' and `tar tv' outputs.
599 ** New incremental snapshot file format keeps information about file names
600 as well as that about directories.
602 ** The --checkpoint option takes an optional argument specifying the number
603 of records between the two successive checkpoints. Optional dot
604 starting the argument intructs tar to print dots instead of textual
607 ** The --totals option can be used with any tar operation (previous versions
608 understood it only with --create). If an argument to this option is
609 given, it specifies the signal upon delivery of which the statistics
610 is to be printed. Both forms of this option (with and without
611 argument) can be given to in a single invocation of tar.
614 ** Detect attempts to update compressed archives.
617 version 1.15.90 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-02-19
621 ** Any number of -T (--files-from) options may be used in the command line.
622 The file specified with -T may include any valid `tar' options,
623 including another -T option.
624 Compatibility note: older versions of tar would only recognize -C
625 as an option name within the file list file. Now any file whose name
626 starts with - is handled as an option. To insert file names starting with
627 dash, use the --add-file option.
629 ** List files containing null-separated file names are detected and processed
630 automatically. It is no longer necessary to give the --null option.
632 ** New option --no-unquote disables the unquoting of input file names.
633 This is useful for processing output from `find dir -print0'.
634 An orthogonal option --unquote is provided as well.
636 ** New option --test-label tests the archive volume label.
637 If an argument is specified, the label is compared against its value.
638 Tar exits with code 0 if the two strings match, and with code 2 if
641 If no argument is given, the --verbose option is implied. In this case,
642 tar prints the label name if present and exits with code 0.
644 ** New option --show-stored-names. When creating an archive in verbose mode,
645 it lists member names as stored in the archive, i.e., with any eventual
646 prefixes removed. The option is useful, for example, while comparing
647 `tar cv' and `tar tv' outputs.
649 ** New option --to-command pipes the contents of archive members to the
652 ** New option --atime-preserve=system, which uses the O_NOATIME feature
653 of recent Linux kernels to avoid some problems when preserving file
656 ** New option --delay-directory-restore delays restoring modification times
657 and permissions of extracted directories until the end of extraction.
658 This is necessary for restoring from archives with unusual member
659 ordering (in particular, those created with --no-recursion option).
660 This option is implied when restoring from incremental archives.
662 ** New option --restrict prohibits use of some potentially harmful tar
663 options. Currently it disables '!' escape in multi-volume name menu.
665 ** New options --quoting-style and --quote-chars control the way tar
666 quotes member names on output. The --quoting-style takes an argument
667 specifying the quoting style to use (literal, shell, shell-always,
668 c, escape, locale, clocale). The argument to --quote-chars is a string
669 specifying characters to quote, even if the selected quoting style
670 would not quote them otherwise. The option --no-quote-chars is
671 provided to disable quoting certain characters.
673 ** The end-of-volume script (introduced with --info-script option) can
674 get current archive name from the environment variable TAR_ARCHIVE and
675 the volume number from the variable TAR_VOLUME. It can alter the
676 archive name by writing new name to the file descriptor 3.
678 ** Better support for full-resolution time stamps. Tar cannot restore
679 time stamps to full nanosecond resolution, though, until the kernel
680 guys get their act together and give us a system call to set file time
681 stamps to nanosecond resolution.
683 ** The -v option now prints time stamps only to 1-minute resolution,
684 not full resolution, to avoid using up too many output columns.
685 Nanosecond resolution is now supported, but that would be too much.
689 ** Allow non-option arguments to be interspersed with options.
690 ** When extracting or listing archives in old GNU format, tar
691 used to read an extra block of data after a long name header
692 if length of the member name was divisible by block size (512).
693 Consequently, the file pointer was set off and the next member
694 was not processed correctly.
695 ** Previous version created invalid archives when files shrink
697 ** Compare mode (tar d) hung when trying to compare file contents.
698 ** Previous versions in certain cases failed to restore directory
700 ** When creating an archive, do not attempt to store files whose
701 meta-data cannot be stored in the header due to format limitations
702 (for ustar and v7 formats).
703 ** The --version option now also outputs information about copyright,
704 license, and credits. This reverts to the behavior of tar 1.14 and
705 earlier, and conforms to the GNU coding standards. The --license (-L)
706 option introduced in tar 1.15 has been removed, since it's no longer
710 version 1.15.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-12-21
712 This version fixes a bug introduced in 1.15 which caused
713 tar to refuse to extract files from standard input.
716 version 1.15 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-12-20
718 * Compressed archives are recognised automatically, it is no longer
719 necessary to specify -Z, -z, or -j options to read them. Thus, you can
720 now run `tar tf archive.tar.gz'.
722 * When restoring incremental dumps, --one-file-system option
723 prevents directory hierarchies residing on different devices
726 With the previous versions of tar it was dangerous to create
727 incremental dumps with --one-file-system option, since they
728 would recursively remove mount points when restoring from the
729 back up. This change fixes the bug.
731 * Renamed --strip-path to --strip-components for consistency with
734 * Skipping archive members is sped up if the archive media supports
737 * Restore script starts restoring only if it is given --all (-a) option,
738 or some patterns. This is to prevent accidental restores.
740 * `tar --verify' prints a warning if during archive creation some of
741 the file names had their prefixes stripped off.
743 * New option --exclude-caches instructs tar to exclude cache directories
744 automatically on archive creation. Cache directories are those
745 containing a standardized tag file, as specified at:
747 http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/spec.html
749 * New configure option --with-rmt allows to specify full path name to
750 the `rmt' utility. This supersedes DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND variable
751 introduced in version 1.14
753 * New configure variable DEFAULT_RMT_DIR allows to specify the directory
754 where to install `rmt' utility. This is necessary since modifying
755 --libexecdir as was suggested for version 1.14 produced a side effect: it
756 also modified installation prefix for backup scripts (if
757 --enable-backup-scripts was given).
760 ** Fixed flow in recognizing files to be included in incremental dumps.
761 ** Correctly recognize sparse archive members when used with -T option.
762 ** GNU multivolume headers cannot store filenames longer than 100 characters.
763 Do not allow multivolume archives to begin with such filenames.
764 ** If a member with link count > 2 was stored in the archive twice,
765 previous versions of tar were not able to extract it, since they
766 were trying to link the file to itself, which always failed and
767 lead to removing the already extracted copy. Preserve the first
768 extracted copy in such cases.
769 ** Restore script was passing improper argument to tar --listed option (which
770 didn't affect the functionality, but was logically incorrect).
771 ** Fixed verification of created archives.
772 ** Fixed unquoting of file names containing backslash escapes (previous
773 versions failed to recognize \a and \v).
774 ** When attempting to delete a non-existing member from the archive, previous
775 versions of tar used to overwrite last archive block with zeroes.
778 version 1.14 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-05-11
780 * Added support for POSIX.1-2001 and ustar archive formats.
781 * New option --format allows to select the output archive format
782 * The default output format can be selected at configuration time
783 by presetting the environment variable DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT.
784 Allowed values are GNU, V7, OLDGNU and POSIX.
785 * New option --strip-path allows to cut off a given number of
786 path elements from the name of the file being extracted.
788 * New options --index-file, --no-overwrite-dir. The --overwrite-dir
789 option is now the default; use --no-overwrite-dir if you prefer
790 the previous default behavior.
792 * The semantics of -o option is changed. When extracting, it
793 does the same as --no-same-owner GNU tar option. This is compatible
794 with UNIX98 tar. Otherwise, its effect is the same as that of
795 --old-archive option. This latter is deprecated and will be removed
798 * New option --check-links prints a message if not all links are dumped
799 for a file being archived. This corresponds to the UNIX98 -l option.
800 The current semantics of the -l option is retained for compatibility
801 with previous releases, however such usage is strongly deprecated as
802 the option will change to its UNIX98 semantics in the future releases.
804 * New option --occurrence[=N] can be used in conjunction with one of
805 the subcommands --delete, --diff, --extract or --list when a list of
806 files is given either on the command line or via -T option. This
807 option instructs tar to process only the Nth occurrence of each named
808 file. N defaults to 1, so `tar -x -f archive --occurrence filename'
809 extracts the first occurrence of `filename' from `archive'
810 and terminates without scanning to the end of the archive.
812 * New option --pax-option allows to control the handling of POSIX
813 keywords in `pax' extended headers. It is equivalent to `pax'
816 * --incremental and --listed-incremental options work correctly on
817 individual files, as well as on directories.
819 * New scripts: backup (replaces old level-0 and level-1) and restore.
820 The scripts are compiled and installed if --enable-backup-scripts
821 option is given to configure.
823 * By default tar searches "rmt" utility in "$prefix/libexec/rmt",
824 which is consistent with the location where the version of "rmt"
825 included in the package is installed. Previous versions of tar
826 used "/etc/rmt". To install "rmt" to its traditional location,
827 run configure with option --libexecdir=/etc. Otherwise, if you
828 already have rmt installed and wish to use it, instead of the
829 shipped in version, set the variable DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND to
830 the full path name of the utility, e.g., ./configure
831 DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND=/etc/rmt.
833 Notice also that the full path name of the "rmt" utility to
834 use can be set at runtime, by giving option --rmt-command to
837 * Removed obsolete command line options:
838 ** --absolute-paths superseded by --absolute-names
839 ** --block-compress is not needed any longer
840 ** --block-size superseded by --blocking-factor
841 ** --modification-time superseded by --touch
842 ** --read-full-blocks superseded by --read-full-records
843 ** --record-number superseded by --block-number
844 ** --version-control superseded by --backup
846 * New message translations fi (Finnish), gl (Galician), hr (Croatian),
847 hu (Hungarian), ms (Malaysian), nb (Norwegian), ro (Romanian), sk
848 (Slovak), zh_CN (Chinese simplified), zh_TW (Chinese traditional).
849 The code 'no' for Norwegian (Bokmål) has been withdrawn; use 'nb' instead.
854 version 1.13.25 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-26
859 version 1.13.24 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-22
861 * New option --overwrite-dir.
862 * Fixes for buffer overrun, porting, and copyright notice problems.
863 * The message translations for Korean are available again.
866 version 1.13.23 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-13
868 * Bug, porting, and copyright notice fixes.
871 version 1.13.22 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-29
876 version 1.13.21 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-28
878 * Porting and copyright notice fixes.
881 version 1.13.20 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-27
883 * Some bugs were fixed:
885 - hard links to symbolic links
887 * New option --recursion (the default) that is the inverse of --no-recursion.
889 * New options --anchored, --ignore-case, --wildcards,
890 --wildcards-match-slash, and their negations (e.g., --no-anchored).
891 Along with --recursion and --no-recursion, these options control how
892 exclude patterns are interpreted.
894 * The default interpretation of exclude patterns is now --no-anchored
895 --no-ignore-case --recursion --wildcards --wildcards-match-slash.
896 This is a quiet change to the semantics of --exclude. The previous
897 semantics were a failed attempt at backward compatibility but it
898 became clear that the semantics were puzzling and did not satisfy
899 everybody. Rather than continue to try to revive that dead horse we
900 thought it better to substitute cleaner semantics, with options so
901 that you can change the behavior more to your liking.
903 * New message translations for Indonesian and Turkish.
904 The translation for Korean has been withdrawn due to encoding errors.
905 It will be reissued once those are fixed.
908 version 1.13.19 - Paul Eggert, 2001-01-13
910 * The -I option has been withdrawn, as it was buggy and confusing.
911 Eventually it is planned to be reintroduced, with the same meaning as -T.
913 * With an option like -N DATE, if DATE starts with "/" or ".", it is taken
914 to be a file name; the last-modified time of that file is used as the date.
917 version 1.13.18 - Paul Eggert, 2000-10-29
919 * Some security problems have been fixed. `tar -x' now modifies only
920 files under the working directory, unless you also specify an unsafe
921 option like --absolute-names or --overwrite.
923 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -j,
924 and -I is now an alias for -T, for compatibility with Solaris tar.
926 * The manual is now distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
928 * The new environment variable TAR_OPTIONS holds default command-line options.
930 * The --no-recursion option now affects extraction too.
932 * The wording in some diagnostics has been changed slightly.
934 * Snapshot files now record whether each file was accessed via NFS.
935 The new file format is upward- and downward-compatible with the old.
937 * New language supported: da.
939 * Compilation by traditional (K&R) C compilers is no longer supported.
940 If you still use such a compiler, please use GCC instead.
942 * This version of tar works best with GNU gzip test version 1.3 or later.
943 Please see <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>.
945 * `tar --delete -f -' now works again.
948 version 1.13.17 - Paul Eggert, 2000-01-07.
950 * `tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
951 * Diagnostic messages have been made more regular and consistent.
954 version 1.13.16 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-13.
956 * By default, tar now refuses to overwrite an existing file when
957 extracting files from an archive; instead, it removes the file
958 before extracting it. If the existing file is a symbolic link, the
959 link is removed and not the pointed-to file. There is one
960 exception: existing nonempty directories are not removed, nor are
961 their ownerships or permissions extracted. This fixes some
962 longstanding security problems.
964 The new --overwrite option enables the old default behavior.
966 For regular files, tar implements this change by using the O_EXCL
967 option of `open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
968 removes the file and tries again. This is similar to the behavior of
969 the --unlink-first option, but it is faster in the common case of
970 extracting a new directory.
972 * By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of `..'
973 when extracting, and warns about such file names when creating an archive.
974 To enable the old behavior, use the -P or --absolute-names option.
976 * Tar now handles file names with multibyte encodings (e.g., UTF-8, Shift-JIS)
977 correctly. It relies on the mbrtowc function to handle multibyte characters.
979 * The file generated by -g or --listed-incremental now uses a format
980 that is independent of locale, so that users need not worry about
981 locale when restoring a backup. This is needed for proper support
982 of multibyte characters. Old-format files can still be read, and
983 older versions of GNU tar can read new-format files, unless member
984 names have multibyte chars.
986 * Many diagnostics have been changed slightly, so that file names are
987 now output unambiguously. File names in diagnostics now are either
988 `quoted like this' (in the default C locale) or are followed by
989 colon, newline, or space, depending on context. Unprintable
990 characters are escaped with a C-like backslash conventions.
991 Terminating characters (e.g., close-quote, colon, newline)
992 are also escaped as needed.
994 * tar now ignores socket files when creating an archive.
995 Previously tar archived sockets as fifos, which caused problems.
998 version 1.13.15 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-03.
1000 * If a file's ctime changes when being archived, report an error.
1001 Previously tar looked at mtime, which missed some errors.
1004 version 1.13.14 - Paul Eggert, 1999-11-07.
1006 * New translations ja, pt_BR.
1007 * New options --help and --version for rmt.
1008 * Ignore Solaris door files when creating an archive.
1011 version 1.13.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-10-11.
1013 * Invalid headers in tar files now elicit errors, not just warnings.
1014 * `tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
1015 * If you specify an invalid date, `tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
1016 * `configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
1019 version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
1021 * `tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
1023 * New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
1025 * --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
1027 * `tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
1028 values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
1029 format. This affects archive members with negative or huge time
1030 stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger. The new tar
1031 archives cannot be read by traditional tar, or by older versions of
1032 GNU tar. Use the --old-archive option to revert to the old
1033 behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
1034 and which rejects large files.
1036 * On 32-bit hosts, `tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
1037 the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
1038 2**32). This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
1039 time_t hosts, so `tar' issues a warning.
1041 * `tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
1042 that an archive contains garbage at the end. It attempts to extract
1043 as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
1045 * A read error now causes a nonzero exit status, not just a warning.
1047 * Some diagnostics have been reworded for consistency.
1050 version 1.13.11 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-23.
1052 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -I,
1053 for compatibility with paxutils.
1055 * -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
1056 if no explicit operands were given.
1058 * The `--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
1059 it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
1060 even if they begin with `-'.
1062 * For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
1063 abbreviations like `EST' has been updated to match current practice.
1064 Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
1065 not in tar's hardwired table. Remember, though, that you should use
1066 numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of abbreviations like
1067 `EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
1070 version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
1072 * `tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
1073 out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format. [This
1074 change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
1077 version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
1079 * `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
1080 POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
1082 * `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
1085 * `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
1086 numeric header field.
1089 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
1091 * For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
1092 created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
1093 the original file or directory.
1096 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
1098 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
1100 * When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
1101 to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
1103 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
1106 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
1108 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
1109 initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
1110 exclude a file if it matches any file name component.
1112 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
1113 Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
1114 The symbolic format (e.g., "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC") is for portability
1115 when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
1116 The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
1117 for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
1119 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
1120 for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
1121 This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
1122 larger uids, negative time stamps, etc.
1124 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
1125 uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
1126 and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
1128 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
1130 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
1133 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
1135 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
1138 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
1140 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
1141 this matches historical practice.
1144 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
1146 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
1147 excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
1148 Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
1151 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
1153 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
1156 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
1160 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
1162 * Support for large files, e.g., files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
1163 Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
1164 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
1165 * This release is only for fixes. A more ambitious test release,
1166 with new features, is available as part of the paxutils. Please see:
1167 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/paxutils/
1168 The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
1169 at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
1170 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
1171 but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
1172 Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
1174 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
1177 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
1178 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
1181 * Offer internationalization capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
1182 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
1183 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
1184 * More normalization and cleanup in error messages.
1187 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
1188 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
1189 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
1190 * Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
1191 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
1192 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
1195 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
1196 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
1197 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
1198 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
1199 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
1200 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
1201 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
1202 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
1203 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
1206 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
1207 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
1208 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
1209 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
1210 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
1211 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
1212 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
1213 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
1215 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
1217 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
1219 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
1220 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
1221 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
1222 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
1223 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
1225 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
1227 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
1229 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
1230 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
1231 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
1234 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
1236 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
1238 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
1239 of compress. Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
1240 compress program. --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
1241 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
1243 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
1245 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
1247 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
1250 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
1252 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
1254 * Several Makefile cleanups.
1256 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
1260 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
1261 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
1262 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
1263 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
1264 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
1268 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
1270 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
1271 for it will eventually be removed.
1273 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
1274 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
1276 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
1277 after they are added to the archive.
1279 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
1282 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
1283 is being read or written.
1285 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
1286 omitted from the archive.
1288 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
1289 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
1291 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
1292 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
1294 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
1295 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
1296 around to the beginning.
1298 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
1299 `:' is interpreted as remote. If new option --force-local is given,
1300 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
1302 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
1303 their original values after dumping the file.
1305 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
1308 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
1309 modification and access times.
1311 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
1312 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
1313 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
1316 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
1318 * Filename to -G is optional. -C works right. Names +newer and
1319 +newer-mtime work right.
1321 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
1323 * Sparse files now work correctly.
1325 * +volume is now called +label.
1327 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
1328 what +exclude used to do.
1330 * Exit status is now correct.
1332 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
1334 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
1336 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
1337 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
1338 point instead of waiting for a write error.
1340 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
1341 to people. They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
1342 shouldn't need local modification. These are what we use to do
1343 all our backups at the FSF.
1345 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
1346 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
1347 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
1349 * See ChangeLog for more details.
1353 Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003,
1354 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1356 This file is part of GNU tar.
1358 GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
1359 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1360 the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
1363 GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1364 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1365 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1366 GNU General Public License for more details.
1368 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1369 along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
1370 the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
1371 Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
1375 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
1376 eval: (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'time-stamp)
1377 time-stamp-start: "changes. "
1378 time-stamp-format: "%:y-%02m-%02d"
1379 time-stamp-end: "\n"