Dogcows Code - chaz/tar/blob - NEWS

   1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
   2
   3 version 1.13.24 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-22
   4
   5 * New option --overwrite-dir.
   6 * Fixes for buffer overrun, porting, and copyright notice problems.
   7
   8 version 1.13.23 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-13
   9
  10 * Bug, porting, and copyright notice fixes.
  11
  12 version 1.13.22 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-29
  13
  14 * Bug fixes.
  15
  16 version 1.13.21 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-28
  17
  18 * Porting and copyright notice fixes.
  19
  20 version 1.13.20 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-27
  21
  22 * Some bugs were fixed:
  23   - security problems
  24   - hard links to symbolic links
  25
  26 * New option --recursion (the default) that is the inverse of --no-recursion.
  27
  28 * New options --anchored, --ignore-case, --wildcards,
  29   --wildcards-match-slash, and their negations (e.g., --no-anchored).
  30   Along with --recursion and --no-recursion, these options control how
  31   exclude patterns are interpreted.
  32
  33 * The default interpretation of exclude patterns is now --no-anchored
  34   --no-ignore-case --recursion --wildcards --wildcards-match-slash.
  35   This is a quiet change to the semantics of --exclude.  The previous
  36   semantics were a failed attempt at backward compatibility but it
  37   became clear that the semantics were puzzling and did not satisfy
  38   everybody.  Rather than continue to try to revive that dead horse we
  39   thought it better to substitute cleaner semantics, with options so
  40   that you can change the behavior more to your liking.
  41
  42 * New message translations for Indonesian and Turkish.
  43   The translation for Korean has been withdrawn due to encoding errors.
  44   It will be reissued once those are fixed.
  45
  46 version 1.13.19 - Paul Eggert, 2001-01-13
  47
  48 * The -I option has been withdrawn, as it was buggy and confusing.
  49   Eventually it is planned to be reintroduced, with the same meaning as -T.
  50
  51 * With an option like -N DATE, if DATE starts with "/" or ".", it is taken
  52   to be a file name; the last-modified time of that file is used as the date.
  53
  54 version 1.13.18 - Paul Eggert, 2000-10-29
  55
  56 * Some security problems have been fixed.  `tar -x' now modifies only
  57   files under the working directory, unless you also specify an unsafe
  58   option like --absolute-names or --overwrite.
  59
  60 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -j,
  61   and -I is now an alias for -T, for compatibility with Solaris tar.
  62
  63 * The manual is now distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
  64
  65 * The new environment variable TAR_OPTIONS holds default command-line options.
  66
  67 * The --no-recursion option now affects extraction too.
  68
  69 * The wording in some diagnostics has been changed slightly.
  70
  71 * Snapshot files now record whether each file was accessed via NFS.
  72   The new file format is upward- and downward-compatible with the old.
  73
  74 * New language supported: da.
  75
  76 * Compilation by traditional (K&R) C compilers is no longer supported.
  77   If you still use such a compiler, please use GCC instead.
  78
  79 * This version of tar works best with GNU gzip test version 1.3 or later.
  80   Please see <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>.
  81
  82 * `tar --delete -f -' now works again.
  83
  84 version 1.13.17 - Paul Eggert, 2000-01-07.
  85
  86 * `tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
  87 * Diagnostic messages have been made more regular and consistent.
  88
  89 version 1.13.16 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-13.
  90
  91 * By default, tar now refuses to overwrite an existing file when
  92   extracting files from an archive; instead, it removes the file
  93   before extracting it.  If the existing file is a symbolic link, the
  94   link is removed and not the pointed-to file.  There is one
  95   exception: existing nonempty directories are not removed, nor are
  96   their ownerships or permissions extracted.  This fixes some
  97   longstanding security problems.
  98
  99   The new --overwrite option enables the old default behavior.
 100
 101   For regular files, tar implements this change by using the O_EXCL
 102   option of `open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
 103   removes the file and tries again.  This is similar to the behavior of
 104   the --unlink-first option, but it is faster in the common case of
 105   extracting a new directory.
 106
 107 * By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of `..'
 108   when extracting, and warns about such file names when creating an archive.
 109   To enable the old behavior, use the -P or --absolute-names option.
 110
 111 * Tar now handles file names with multibyte encodings (e.g. UTF-8, Shift-JIS)
 112   correctly.  It relies on the mbrtowc function to handle multibytes.
 113
 114 * The file generated by -g or --listed-incremental now uses a format
 115   that is independent of locale, so that users need not worry about
 116   locale when restoring a backup.  This is needed for proper support
 117   of multibyte characters.  Old-format files can still be read, and
 118   older versions of GNU tar can read new-format files, unless member
 119   names have multibyte chars.
 120
 121 * Many diagnostics have been changed slightly, so that file names are
 122   now output unambiguously.  File names in diagnostics now are either
 123   `quoted like this' (in the default C locale) or are followed by
 124   colon, newline, or space, depending on context.  Unprintable
 125   characters are escaped with a C-like backslash conventions.
 126   Terminating characters (e.g. close-quote, colon, newline)
 127   are also escaped as needed.
 128
 129 * tar now ignores socket files when creating an archive.
 130   Previously tar archived sockets as fifos, which caused problems.
 131
 132 version 1.13.15 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-03.
 133
 134 * If a file's ctime changes when being archived, report an error.
 135   Previously tar looked at mtime, which missed some errors.
 136
 137 version 1.13.14 - Paul Eggert, 1999-11-07.
 138
 139 * New translations ja, pt_BR.
 140 * New options --help and --version for rmt.
 141 * Ignore Solaris door files when creating an archive.
 142
 143 version 1.13.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-10-11.
 144
 145 * Invalid headers in tar files now elicit errors, not just warnings.
 146 * `tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
 147 * If you specify an invalid date, `tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
 148 * `configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
 149
 150 version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
 151
 152 * `tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
 153
 154 * New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
 155
 156 * --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
 157
 158 * `tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
 159   values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
 160   format.  This affects archive members with negative or huge time
 161   stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger.  The new tar
 162   archives cannot be read by traditional tar, or by older versions of
 163   GNU tar.  Use the --old-archive option to revert to the old
 164   behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
 165   and which rejects large files.
 166
 167 * On 32-bit hosts, `tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
 168   the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
 169   2**32).  This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
 170   time_t hosts, so `tar' issues a warning.
 171
 172 * `tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
 173   that an archive contains garbage at the end.  It attempts to extract
 174   as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
 175
 176 * A read error now causes a nonzero exit status, not just a warning.
 177
 178 * Some diagnostics have been reworded for consistency.
 179
 180
 181 version 1.13.11 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-23.
 182
 183 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -I,
 184   for compatibility with paxutils.
 185
 186 * -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
 187   if no explicit operands were given.
 188
 189 * The `--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
 190   it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
 191   even if they begin with `-'.
 192
 193 * For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
 194   abbreviations like `EST' has been updated to match current practice.
 195   Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
 196   not in tar's hardwired table.  Remember, though, that you should use
 197   numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of abbreviations like
 198   `EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
 199
 200
 201 version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
 202
 203 * `tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
 204   out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format.  [This
 205   change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
 206
 207
 208 version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
 209
 210 * `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
 211   POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
 212
 213 * `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
 214   as a zero block.
 215
 216 * `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
 217   numeric header field.
 218
 219
 220 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
 221
 222 * For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
 223   created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
 224   the original file or directory.
 225
 226
 227 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
 228
 229 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
 230
 231 * When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
 232   to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
 233
 234 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
 235
 236
 237 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
 238
 239 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
 240   initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
 241   exclude a file if it matches any file name component.
 242
 243 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
 244   Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
 245   The symbolic format (e.g. "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC") is for portability
 246   when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
 247   The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
 248   for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
 249
 250 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
 251   for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
 252   This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
 253   larger uids, negative time stamps, etc.
 254
 255 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
 256   uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
 257   and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
 258
 259 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
 260
 261 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
 262
 263
 264 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
 265
 266 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
 267
 268
 269 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
 270
 271 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
 272   this matches historical practice.
 273
 274
 275 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
 276
 277 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
 278   excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
 279   Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
 280
 281
 282 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
 283
 284 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
 285
 286
 287 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
 288
 289 * Bug fixes only.
 290 \f
 291 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
 292
 293 * Support for large files, e.g. files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
 294   Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
 295 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
 296 * This release is only for fixes.  A more ambitious test release,
 297   with new features, is available as part of the paxutils.  Please see:
 298     ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/paxutils/
 299   The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
 300   at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
 301 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
 302   but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
 303   Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
 304 \f
 305 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
 306
 307 Sensitive matters
 308 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
 309 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
 310
 311 Output for humans
 312 * Offer internationalization capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
 313 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
 314 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
 315 * More normalization and cleanup in error messages.
 316
 317 Creation
 318 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
 319 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
 320 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
 321 * Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
 322 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
 323 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
 324
 325 Extraction
 326 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
 327 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
 328 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
 329 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
 330 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
 331 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
 332 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
 333 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
 334 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
 335
 336 Various changes
 337 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
 338 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
 339 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
 340 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
 341 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
 342 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
 343 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
 344 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
 345
 346 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
 347 \f
 348 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
 349
 350 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
 351 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
 352 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
 353 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
 354 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
 355
 356 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
 357 \f
 358 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
 359
 360 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
 361 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
 362 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
 363 DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT.
 364
 365 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
 366
 367 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
 368
 369 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
 370 of compress.  Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
 371 compress program.  --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
 372 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
 373
 374 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
 375
 376 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
 377
 378 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
 379 for --info-script.
 380
 381 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
 382
 383 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
 384
 385 * Several Makefile cleanups.
 386 \f
 387 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
 388
 389 * Many bug fixes.
 390 \f
 391 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
 392 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
 393 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
 394 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
 395 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
 396
 397 * Many bug fixes.
 398
 399 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
 400
 401 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
 402 for it will eventually be removed.
 403
 404 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
 405 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
 406
 407 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
 408 after they are added to the archive.
 409
 410 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
 411 the exit status.
 412
 413 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
 414 is being read or written.
 415
 416 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
 417 omitted from the archive.
 418
 419 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
 420 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
 421
 422 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
 423 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
 424
 425 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
 426 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
 427 around to the beginning.
 428
 429 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
 430 `:' is interpreted as remote.  If new option --force-local is given,
 431 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
 432
 433 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
 434 their original values after dumping the file.
 435
 436 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
 437 what to dump.
 438
 439 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
 440 modification and access times.
 441
 442 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
 443 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
 444 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
 445 long names to work.
 446 \f
 447 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
 448
 449 * Filename to -G is optional.  -C works right.  Names +newer and
 450 +newer-mtime work right.
 451
 452 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
 453
 454 * Sparse files now work correctly.
 455
 456 * +volume is now called +label.
 457
 458 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
 459 what +exclude used to do.
 460
 461 * Exit status is now correct.
 462
 463 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
 464
 465 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
 466
 467 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
 468 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
 469 point instead of waiting for a write error.
 470
 471 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
 472 to people.  They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
 473 shouldn't need local modification.  These are what we use to do
 474 all our backups at the FSF.
 475 \f
 476 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
 477 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
 478 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
 479
 480 * See ChangeLog for more details.
 481
 482 \f
 483
 484 Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free
 485 Software Foundation, Inc.
 486
 487 This file is part of GNU tar.
 488
 489 GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 490 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 491 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
 492 any later version.
 493
 494 GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 495 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 496 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 497 GNU General Public License for more details.
 498
 499 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 500 along with tar; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to
 501 the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
 502 Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
 503
 504 \f
 505
 506 Local Variables:
 507 coding: iso-latin-1
 508 End: