1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
8 version 1.14.91 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-12-14
10 * Compressed archives are recognised automatically, it is no longer
11 necessary to specify -Z, -z, or -j options to read them. Thus, you can
12 now run `tar tf archive.tar.gz'.
14 * When restoring incremental dumps, --one-file-system option
15 prevents directory hierarchies residing on different devices
18 With the previous versions of tar it was dangerous to create
19 incremental dumps with --one-file-system option, since they
20 would recursively remove mount points when restoring from the
21 back up. This change fixes the bug.
23 * Renamed --strip-path to --strip-components for consistency with
26 * Skipping archive members is sped up if the archive media supports
29 * Restore script starts restoring only if it is given --all (-a) option,
30 or some patterns. This is to prevent accidental restores.
32 * `tar --verify' prints a warning if during archive creation some of
33 the file names had their prefixes stripped off.
35 * New option --exclude-caches instructs tar to exclude cache directories
36 automatically on archive creation. Cache directories are those
37 containing a standardized tag file, as specified at:
39 http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/spec.html
41 * New configure option --with-rmt allows to specify full path name to
42 the `rmt' utility. This supercedes DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND variable
43 introduced in version 1.14
45 * New configure variable DEFAULT_RMT_DIR allows to specify the directory
46 where to install `rmt' utility. This is necessary since modifying
47 --libexecdir as was suggested for version 1.14 produced a side effect: it
48 also modified installation prefix for backup scripts (if
49 --enable-backup-scripts was given).
52 ** Fixed flow in recognizing files to be included in incremental dumps.
53 ** Correctly recognize sparse archive members when used with -T option.
54 ** GNU multivolume headers cannot store filenames longer than 100 characters.
55 Do not allow multivolume archives to begin with such filenames.
56 ** If a member with link count > 2 was stored in the archive twice,
57 previous versions of tar were not able to extract it, since they
58 were trying to link the file to itself, which always failed and
59 lead to removing the already extracted copy. Preserve the first
60 extracted copy in such cases.
61 ** Restore script was passing improper argument to tar --listed option.
62 ** Fixed verification of the created archives.
63 ** Fixed unquoting of the file names containing backslash escapes (previous
64 versions failed to recognize \a and \v).
67 version 1.14 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-05-11
69 * Added support for POSIX.1-2001 and ustar archive formats.
70 * New option --format allows to select the output archive format
71 * The default output format can be selected at configuration time
72 by presetting the environment variable DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT.
73 Allowed values are GNU, V7, OLDGNU and POSIX.
74 * New option --strip-path allows to cut off a given number of
75 path elements from the name of the file being extracted.
77 * New options --index-file, --no-overwrite-dir. The --overwrite-dir
78 option is now the default; use --no-overwrite-dir if you prefer
79 the previous default behavior.
81 * The semantics of -o option is changed. When extracting, it
82 does the same as --no-same-owner GNU tar option. This is compatible
83 with UNIX98 tar. Otherwise, its effect is the same as that of
84 --old-archive option. This latter is deprecated and will be removed
87 * New option --check-links prints a message if not all links are dumped
88 for a file being archived. This corresponds to the UNIX98 -l option.
89 The current semantics of the -l option is retained for compatibility
90 with previous releases, however such usage is strongly deprecated as
91 the option will change to its UNIX98 semantics in the future releases.
93 * New option --occurrence[=N] can be used in conjunction with one of
94 the subcommands --delete, --diff, --extract or --list when a list of
95 files is given either on the command line or via -T option. This
96 option instructs tar to process only the Nth occurrence of each named
97 file. N defaults to 1, so `tar -x -f archive --occurrence filename'
98 extracts the first occurrence of `filename' from `archive'
99 and terminates without scanning to the end of the archive.
101 * New option --pax-option allows to control the handling of POSIX
102 keywords in `pax' extended headers. It is equivalent to `pax'
105 * --incremental and --listed-incremental options work correctly on
106 individual files, as well as on directories.
108 * New scripts: backup (replaces old level-0 and level-1) and restore.
109 The scripts are compiled and installed if --enable-backup-scripts
110 option is given to configure.
112 * By default tar searches "rmt" utility in "$prefix/libexec/rmt",
113 which is consistent with the location where the version of "rmt"
114 included in the package is installed. Previous versions of tar
115 used "/etc/rmt". To install "rmt" to its traditional location,
116 run configure with option --libexecdir=/etc. Otherwise, if you
117 already have rmt installed and wish to use it, instead of the
118 shipped in version, set the variable DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND to
119 the full path name of the utility, e.g. ./configure
120 DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND=/etc/rmt.
122 Notice also that the full path name of the "rmt" utility to
123 use can be set at runtime, by giving option --rmt-command to
126 * Removed obsolete command line options:
127 ** --absolute-paths superseded by --absolute-names
128 ** --block-compress is not needed any longer
129 ** --block-size superseded by --blocking-factor
130 ** --modification-time superseded by --touch
131 ** --read-full-blocks superseded by --read-full-records
132 ** --record-number superseded by --block-number
133 ** --version-control superseded by --backup
135 * New message translations fi (Finnish), gl (Galician), hr (Croatian),
136 hu (Hungarian), ms (Malaysian), nb (Norwegian), ro (Romanian), sk
137 (Slovak), zh_CN (Chinese simplified), zh_TW (Chinese traditional).
138 The code 'no' for Norwegian (Bokmål) has been withdrawn; use 'nb' instead.
143 version 1.13.25 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-26
148 version 1.13.24 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-22
150 * New option --overwrite-dir.
151 * Fixes for buffer overrun, porting, and copyright notice problems.
152 * The message translations for Korean are available again.
155 version 1.13.23 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-13
157 * Bug, porting, and copyright notice fixes.
160 version 1.13.22 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-29
165 version 1.13.21 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-28
167 * Porting and copyright notice fixes.
170 version 1.13.20 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-27
172 * Some bugs were fixed:
174 - hard links to symbolic links
176 * New option --recursion (the default) that is the inverse of --no-recursion.
178 * New options --anchored, --ignore-case, --wildcards,
179 --wildcards-match-slash, and their negations (e.g., --no-anchored).
180 Along with --recursion and --no-recursion, these options control how
181 exclude patterns are interpreted.
183 * The default interpretation of exclude patterns is now --no-anchored
184 --no-ignore-case --recursion --wildcards --wildcards-match-slash.
185 This is a quiet change to the semantics of --exclude. The previous
186 semantics were a failed attempt at backward compatibility but it
187 became clear that the semantics were puzzling and did not satisfy
188 everybody. Rather than continue to try to revive that dead horse we
189 thought it better to substitute cleaner semantics, with options so
190 that you can change the behavior more to your liking.
192 * New message translations for Indonesian and Turkish.
193 The translation for Korean has been withdrawn due to encoding errors.
194 It will be reissued once those are fixed.
197 version 1.13.19 - Paul Eggert, 2001-01-13
199 * The -I option has been withdrawn, as it was buggy and confusing.
200 Eventually it is planned to be reintroduced, with the same meaning as -T.
202 * With an option like -N DATE, if DATE starts with "/" or ".", it is taken
203 to be a file name; the last-modified time of that file is used as the date.
206 version 1.13.18 - Paul Eggert, 2000-10-29
208 * Some security problems have been fixed. `tar -x' now modifies only
209 files under the working directory, unless you also specify an unsafe
210 option like --absolute-names or --overwrite.
212 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -j,
213 and -I is now an alias for -T, for compatibility with Solaris tar.
215 * The manual is now distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
217 * The new environment variable TAR_OPTIONS holds default command-line options.
219 * The --no-recursion option now affects extraction too.
221 * The wording in some diagnostics has been changed slightly.
223 * Snapshot files now record whether each file was accessed via NFS.
224 The new file format is upward- and downward-compatible with the old.
226 * New language supported: da.
228 * Compilation by traditional (K&R) C compilers is no longer supported.
229 If you still use such a compiler, please use GCC instead.
231 * This version of tar works best with GNU gzip test version 1.3 or later.
232 Please see <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>.
234 * `tar --delete -f -' now works again.
237 version 1.13.17 - Paul Eggert, 2000-01-07.
239 * `tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
240 * Diagnostic messages have been made more regular and consistent.
243 version 1.13.16 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-13.
245 * By default, tar now refuses to overwrite an existing file when
246 extracting files from an archive; instead, it removes the file
247 before extracting it. If the existing file is a symbolic link, the
248 link is removed and not the pointed-to file. There is one
249 exception: existing nonempty directories are not removed, nor are
250 their ownerships or permissions extracted. This fixes some
251 longstanding security problems.
253 The new --overwrite option enables the old default behavior.
255 For regular files, tar implements this change by using the O_EXCL
256 option of `open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
257 removes the file and tries again. This is similar to the behavior of
258 the --unlink-first option, but it is faster in the common case of
259 extracting a new directory.
261 * By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of `..'
262 when extracting, and warns about such file names when creating an archive.
263 To enable the old behavior, use the -P or --absolute-names option.
265 * Tar now handles file names with multibyte encodings (e.g. UTF-8, Shift-JIS)
266 correctly. It relies on the mbrtowc function to handle multibyte characters.
268 * The file generated by -g or --listed-incremental now uses a format
269 that is independent of locale, so that users need not worry about
270 locale when restoring a backup. This is needed for proper support
271 of multibyte characters. Old-format files can still be read, and
272 older versions of GNU tar can read new-format files, unless member
273 names have multibyte chars.
275 * Many diagnostics have been changed slightly, so that file names are
276 now output unambiguously. File names in diagnostics now are either
277 `quoted like this' (in the default C locale) or are followed by
278 colon, newline, or space, depending on context. Unprintable
279 characters are escaped with a C-like backslash conventions.
280 Terminating characters (e.g. close-quote, colon, newline)
281 are also escaped as needed.
283 * tar now ignores socket files when creating an archive.
284 Previously tar archived sockets as fifos, which caused problems.
287 version 1.13.15 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-03.
289 * If a file's ctime changes when being archived, report an error.
290 Previously tar looked at mtime, which missed some errors.
293 version 1.13.14 - Paul Eggert, 1999-11-07.
295 * New translations ja, pt_BR.
296 * New options --help and --version for rmt.
297 * Ignore Solaris door files when creating an archive.
300 version 1.13.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-10-11.
302 * Invalid headers in tar files now elicit errors, not just warnings.
303 * `tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
304 * If you specify an invalid date, `tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
305 * `configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
308 version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
310 * `tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
312 * New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
314 * --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
316 * `tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
317 values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
318 format. This affects archive members with negative or huge time
319 stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger. The new tar
320 archives cannot be read by traditional tar, or by older versions of
321 GNU tar. Use the --old-archive option to revert to the old
322 behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
323 and which rejects large files.
325 * On 32-bit hosts, `tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
326 the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
327 2**32). This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
328 time_t hosts, so `tar' issues a warning.
330 * `tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
331 that an archive contains garbage at the end. It attempts to extract
332 as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
334 * A read error now causes a nonzero exit status, not just a warning.
336 * Some diagnostics have been reworded for consistency.
339 version 1.13.11 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-23.
341 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -I,
342 for compatibility with paxutils.
344 * -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
345 if no explicit operands were given.
347 * The `--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
348 it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
349 even if they begin with `-'.
351 * For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
352 abbreviations like `EST' has been updated to match current practice.
353 Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
354 not in tar's hardwired table. Remember, though, that you should use
355 numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of abbreviations like
356 `EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
359 version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
361 * `tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
362 out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format. [This
363 change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
366 version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
368 * `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
369 POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
371 * `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
374 * `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
375 numeric header field.
378 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
380 * For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
381 created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
382 the original file or directory.
385 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
387 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
389 * When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
390 to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
392 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
395 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
397 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
398 initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
399 exclude a file if it matches any file name component.
401 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
402 Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
403 The symbolic format (e.g. "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC") is for portability
404 when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
405 The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
406 for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
408 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
409 for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
410 This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
411 larger uids, negative time stamps, etc.
413 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
414 uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
415 and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
417 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
419 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
422 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
424 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
427 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
429 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
430 this matches historical practice.
433 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
435 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
436 excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
437 Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
440 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
442 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
445 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
449 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
451 * Support for large files, e.g. files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
452 Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
453 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
454 * This release is only for fixes. A more ambitious test release,
455 with new features, is available as part of the paxutils. Please see:
456 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/paxutils/
457 The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
458 at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
459 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
460 but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
461 Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
463 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
466 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
467 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
470 * Offer internationalization capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
471 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
472 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
473 * More normalization and cleanup in error messages.
476 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
477 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
478 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
479 * Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
480 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
481 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
484 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
485 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
486 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
487 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
488 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
489 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
490 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
491 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
492 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
495 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
496 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
497 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
498 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
499 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
500 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
501 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
502 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
504 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
506 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
508 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
509 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
510 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
511 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
512 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
514 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
516 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
518 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
519 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
520 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
523 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
525 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
527 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
528 of compress. Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
529 compress program. --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
530 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
532 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
534 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
536 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
539 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
541 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
543 * Several Makefile cleanups.
545 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
549 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
550 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
551 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
552 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
553 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
557 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
559 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
560 for it will eventually be removed.
562 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
563 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
565 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
566 after they are added to the archive.
568 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
571 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
572 is being read or written.
574 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
575 omitted from the archive.
577 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
578 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
580 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
581 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
583 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
584 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
585 around to the beginning.
587 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
588 `:' is interpreted as remote. If new option --force-local is given,
589 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
591 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
592 their original values after dumping the file.
594 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
597 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
598 modification and access times.
600 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
601 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
602 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
605 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
607 * Filename to -G is optional. -C works right. Names +newer and
608 +newer-mtime work right.
610 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
612 * Sparse files now work correctly.
614 * +volume is now called +label.
616 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
617 what +exclude used to do.
619 * Exit status is now correct.
621 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
623 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
625 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
626 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
627 point instead of waiting for a write error.
629 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
630 to people. They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
631 shouldn't need local modification. These are what we use to do
632 all our backups at the FSF.
634 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
635 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
636 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
638 * See ChangeLog for more details.
642 Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003
643 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
645 This file is part of GNU tar.
647 GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
648 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
649 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
652 GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
653 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
654 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
655 GNU General Public License for more details.
657 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
658 along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
659 the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
660 Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
664 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"