1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2010-11-27
2 Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
5 version 1.25.90 - (Git)
8 ** Fix the --verify option, which broke in version 1.24.
9 ** Fix storing long sparse file names in PAX archives.
12 version 1.25 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-11-07
14 * Fix extraction of empty directories with the -C option in effect.
15 * Fix extraction of device nodes.
16 * Make sure name matching occurs before eventual name transformation.
18 Tar 1.24 changed the ordering of name matching and name transformation
19 so that the former saw already transformed file names. This made it
20 impossible to match file names in certain cases. It is fixed now.
22 * Fix the behavior of tar -x --overwrite on hosts lacking O_NOFOLLOW.
24 * Improve the testsuite.
26 * Alternative decompression programs.
28 If extraction from a compressed archive fails because the corresponding
29 compression program is not installed and the following two conditions
30 are met, tar retries extraction using an alternative decompressor:
32 1. Another compression program supported by tar is able to handle this
34 2. The compression program was not explicitly requested in the command
35 line by the use of such options as -z, -j, etc.
37 For example, if `compress' is not available, tar will try `gzip'.
40 version 1.24 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-10-24
42 * The --full-time option.
44 New command line option `--full-time' instructs tar to output file
45 time stamps to the full resolution.
49 ** More reliable directory traversal when creating archives
51 Tar now checks for inconsistencies caused when a file system is
52 modified while tar is creating an archive. In the new approach, tar
53 maintains a cache of file descriptors to directories, so it uses more
54 file descriptors than before, but it adjusts to system limits on
55 the number of file descriptors. Tar also takes more care when
56 a file system is modified while tar is extracting from an archive.
58 The new checks are implemented via the openat and related calls
59 standardized by POSIX.1-2008. On an older system where these calls do
60 not exist or do not return useful results, tar emulates the calls at
61 some cost in efficiency and reliability.
63 ** Symbolic link attributes
65 When extracting symbolic links, tar now restores attributes such as
66 last-modified time and link permissions, if the operating system
67 supports this. For example, recent versions of the Linux kernel
68 support setting times on symlinks, and some BSD kernels also support
71 ** --dereference consistency
73 The --dereference (-h) option now applies to files that are copied
74 into or out of archives, independently of other options. For example,
75 if F is a symbolic link and archive.tar contains a regular-file member
76 also named F, "tar --overwrite -x -f archive.tar F" now overwrites F
77 itself, rather than the file that F points to. (To overwrite the file
78 that F points to, add the --dereference (-h) option.) Formerly,
79 --dereference was intended to apply only when using the -c option, but
80 the implementation was not consistent.
82 Also, the --dereference option no longer affects accesses to other
83 files, such as archives and time stamp files. Symbolic links to these
84 files are always followed. Previously, the links were usually but not
87 ** Spurious error diagnostics on broken pipe.
89 When receiving SIGPIPE, tar would exit with error status and
90 "write error" diagnostics. In particular, this occurred if
91 invoked as in the example below:
93 tar tf archive.tar | head -n 1
97 `Tar --remove-files' failed to remove a directory which contained
98 symlinks to another files within that directory.
100 ** --test-label behavior
102 In case of a mismatch, `tar --test-label LABEL' exits with code 1,
103 not 2 as it did in previous versions.
105 The `--verbose' option used with `--test-label' provides additional
108 Several volume labels may be specified in a command line, e.g.:
110 tar --test-label -f archive 'My volume' 'New volume' 'Test volume'
112 In this case, tar exits with code 0 if any one of the arguments
113 matches the actual volume label.
115 ** --label used with --update
117 The `--label' option can be used with `--update' to prevent accidental
118 update of an archive:
120 tar -rf archive --label 'My volume' .
122 This did not work in previous versions, in spite of what the docs said.
124 ** --record-size and --tape-length (-L) options
126 Usual size suffixes are allowed for these options. For example,
127 -L10k stands for a 10 kilobyte tape length.
129 ** Fix dead loop on extracting existing symlinks with the -k option.
132 version 1.23 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-03-10
134 * Record size autodetection
136 When listing or extracting archives, the actual record size is
137 reported only if the archive is read from a device (as opposed
138 to regular files and pipes).
142 When a read-only operation (e.g. --list or --extract) is requested
143 on a regular file, tar attemtps to speed up accesses by using lseek.
145 * New command line option `--warning'
147 The `--warning' command line option allows to suppress or enable
148 particular warning messages during `tar' run. It takes a single
149 argument (a `keyword'), identifying the class of warning messages
150 to affect. If the argument is prefixed with `no-', such warning
151 messages are suppressed. For example,
153 tar --warning=no-alone-zero-block -x -f archive
155 suppresses the output of `A lone zero block' diagnostics, which is
156 normally issued if `archive' ends with a single block of zeros.
158 See Tar Manual, section 3.9 "Controlling Warning Messages", for a
161 * New command line option `--level'
163 The `--level=N' option sets the incremental dump level N. It
164 is valid when used in conjunction with the -c and --listed-incremental
165 options. So far the only meaningful value for N is 0. The
166 `--level=0' option forces creating the level 0 dump, by truncating
167 the snapshot file if it exists.
169 * Files removed during incremental dumps
171 If a file or directory is removed while incremental dump is
172 in progress, tar exact actions depend on whether this file
173 was explicitly listed in the command line, or was found
174 during file system scan.
176 If the file was explicitly listed in the command line, tar
177 issues error message and exits with the code 2, meaning
180 Otherwise, if the file was found during the file system scan,
181 tar issues a warning, saying "File removed before we read it",
182 and sets exit code to 1, which means "some files differ".
183 If the --warning=no-file-removed option is given, no warning
184 is issued and exit code remains 0.
186 * Modification times of PAX extended headers.
188 Modification times in ustar header blocks of extended headers
189 are set to mtimes of the corresponding archive members. This
190 can be overridden by the
192 --pax-opion='exthdr.mtime=STRING'
194 command line option. The STRING is either number of seconds since
195 the Epoch or a `Time reference' (see below).
197 Modification times in ustar header blocks of global extended
198 headers are set to the time when tar was invoked.
200 This can be overridden by the
202 --pax-opion='globexthdr.mtime=STRING'
204 command line option. The STRING is either number of seconds since
205 the Epoch or a `Time reference' (see below).
207 * Time references in --pax-option argument.
209 Any value from the --pax-option argument that is enclosed in a pair
210 of curly braces represents a time reference. The string between the
211 braces is understood either as a textual time representation, as described in
212 chapter 7, "Date input formats", of the Tar manual, or as a name of
213 an existing file, starting with `/' or `.'. In the latter
214 case, it is replaced with the modification time of that file.
216 * Environment of --to-command script.
218 The environment passed to the --to-command script is extended with
219 the following variables:
221 TAR_VERSION GNU tar version number
222 TAR_ARCHIVE The name of the archive
223 TAR_VOLUME Ordinal number of the volume
224 TAR_FORMAT Format of the archive
225 TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR Current blocking factor
228 ** Fix handling of hard link targets by -c --transform.
229 ** Fix hard links recognition with -c --remove-files.
230 ** Fix restoring files from backup (debian bug #508199).
231 ** Correctly restore modes and permissions on existing directories.
232 ** The --remove-files option removes files only if they were
233 succesfully stored in the archive.
234 ** Fix storing and listing of the volume labels in POSIX format.
235 ** Improve algorithm for splitting long file names (ustar
237 ** Fix possible memory overflow in the rmt client code (CVE-2010-0624).
240 version 1.22 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2009-03-05
242 * Support for xz compression
244 Tar uses xz for compression if one of the following conditions is met:
246 1. The option --xz or -J (see below) is used.
247 2. The xz binary is set as compressor using --use-compress-program option.
248 3. The file name of the archive being created ends in `.xz' and
249 auto-compress option (-a) is used.
251 Xz is used for decompression if one of the following conditions is met:
253 1. The option --xz or -J is used.
254 2. The xz binary is set as compressor using --use-compress-program option.
255 3. The file is recognized as xz compressed stream data.
257 * Short option -J reassigned as a short equivalent of --xz
261 The -I option is assigned as a short equivalent for
262 --use-compress-program.
264 * The --no-recursive option works in incremental mode.
267 version 1.21 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2008-12-27
269 * New short option -J
271 A shortcut for --lzma.
275 * New option --no-auto-compress
277 Cancels the effect of previous --auto-compress (-a) option.
279 * New option --no-null
281 Cancels the effect of previous --null option.
283 * Compressed format recognition
285 If tar is unable to determine archive compression format, it falls
286 back to using archive suffix to determine it.
290 Using --exclude-vcs handles also files used internally by Bazaar,
293 * Transformation scope flags
295 Name transformation expressions understand additional flags that
296 control type of archive members affected by them. The flags are:
299 Apply transformation to regular archive members.
302 Apply transformation to symbolic link targets.
305 Apply transformation to hard link targets.
307 Corresponding upper-case letters negate the meaning, so that
308 `H' means ``do not apply transformation to hard link targets.''
310 The scope flags are listed in the third part of an `s' expression,
313 tar --transform 's|^|/usr/local/|S'
315 Default is `rsh', which means that transformations are applied to
316 both regular archive members and to the targets of symbolic and hard
317 links. If several transform expressions are used, the default flags
318 can be changed using `flags=' statement before the expressions, e.g.:
320 tar --transform 'flags=S;s|^|/usr/local/|S'
324 ** The --null option disabled handling of tar options in list files. This
326 ** Fixed record size autodetection. If the detected record size differs from
327 the expected value (either default one, or the one set from the
328 command line), tar always prints a warning if verbosity level is set
329 to 1 or greater, i.e. if either -t or -v option is given.
333 version 1.20 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2008-04-14
335 * New option --auto-compress (-a)
337 With --create, selects compression algorithm basing on the suffix
338 of the archive file name.
342 Selects LZMA compression algorithm
344 * New option --hard-dereference
346 During archive creation, dereferences hard links and stores the files
347 they refer to, instead of creating usual hard link members (type '1').
349 * New option --checkpoint-action
351 This action allows to specify an action to be executed upon hitting a
352 checkpoint. Recognized actions are: dot, echo (the default),
353 echo=string, ttyout=string, exec=cmdline, and sleep=value. Any number
354 of `--checkpoint-action' options can be specified, the actions will be
355 executed in order of their appearance in the command line. See
356 chapter 3.8 "Checkpoints" for a complete description.
358 * New options --no-check-device, --check-device.
360 The `--no-check-device' option disables comparing device numbers during
361 preparatory stage of an incremental dump. This allows to avoid
362 creating full dumps if the device numbers change (e.g. when using an
365 The `--check-device' option enables comparing device numbers. This is
366 the default. This option is provided to undo the effect of the previous
367 `--no-check-device' option, e.g. if it was set in TAR_OPTIONS
368 environment variable.
370 * The --transform option.
372 Any number of `--transform' options can be given in the command line.
373 The specified transformations will be applied in turn.
375 The argument to `--transform' option can be a list of replace
376 expressions, separated by a semicolon (as in `sed').
378 Filename transformations are applied to symbolic link targets
379 during both creation and extraction. Tar 1.19 used them only
382 For a detailed description, see chapter 6.7 "Modifying File and Member
385 * Info (end-of-volume) scripts
387 The value of the blocking factor is made available to info and
388 checkpoint scripts via environment variable TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR.
390 * Incremental archives
392 Improved (sped up) extracting from incremental archives.
395 ** Fix bug introduced in version 1.19: tar refused to update non-existing
399 version 1.19 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-10-10
401 * New option --exclude-vcs
403 Excludes directories and files, created by several widely used version
404 control systems, e.g. "CVS/", ".svn/", etc.
406 * --exclude-tag and --exclude-cache options
408 The following options now work with incremental archives as well:
416 * Fix handling of renamed files in listed incremental archives.
418 Previous versions always stored absolute file names in rename
419 records, even if -P was not used. This is fixed: rename records
420 contain file names processed in accordance with the command line
423 * Fix --version output.
425 * Recognition of broken archives.
427 When supplied an archive smaller than 512 bytes in reading mode (-x,
428 -t), the previous version of tar silently ignored it, exiting with
429 code 0. It is fixed. Tar now issues the following diagnostic message:
430 'This does not look like a tar archive', and exits with code 2.
432 * Fix double-dot recognition in archive member names in case of duplicate '/.'.
434 * Fix file padding in case of truncation of the input file to zero size.
437 version 1.18 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-06-29
439 * Licensed under the GPLv3
441 * Fixed several bugs in the testsuite
444 version 1.17 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-06-08
446 * Fix archivation of sparse files in posix mode. Previous versions padded
447 sparse members with spurious zero blocks.
449 * Fix operation of --verify --listed-incremental. Version 1.16.1 produced
450 a full dump when both options were given.
452 * Fix --occurrence. In previous versions it continued scanning the archive
453 even though all requested members has already been extracted.
455 * Scope of --transform and --strip-components options.
457 In addition to affecting regular archive members, the --transform
458 option affects hard and soft link targets and the --strip-components
459 option affects hard link targets as well.
461 * End-of-volume script can send the new volume name to tar by writing
462 it to the file descriptor stored in the environment variable `TAR_FD'.
465 version 1.16.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-12-09
467 * New option --exclude-tag allows to specify "exclusion tag files", i.e.
468 files whose presence in a directory means that the directory should not
471 * The --exclude-cache option excludes directories that contain the
472 CACHEDIR.TAG file from being archived. Previous versions excluded
473 directory contents only, while the directories themselves were
474 still added to the archive.
476 * Support for reading ustar type 'N' header logical records has been removed.
477 This GNU extension was generated only by very old versions of GNU 'tar'.
478 Unfortunately its implementation had security holes; see
479 <http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclosure/2006-11/0344.html>.
480 We don't expect that any tar archives in practical use have type 'N'
481 records, but if you have one and you trust its contents, you can
482 decode it with GNU tar 1.16 or earlier.
484 * Race conditions have been fixed that in some cases briefly allowed
485 files extracted by 'tar -x --same-owner' (or plain 'tar -x', when
486 running as root) to be accessed by users that they shouldn't have been.
489 version 1.16 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-10-21
491 * After creating an archive, tar exits with code 1 if some files were
492 changed while being read. Previous versions exited with code 2 (fatal
493 error), and only if some files were truncated while being archived.
495 * New option --mtime allows to set modification times for all archive
496 members during creation.
499 ** Avoid running off file descriptors when using multiple -C options.
500 ** tar --index-file=FILE --file=- sent the archive to FILE, and
501 the listing to stderr.
504 version 1.15.91 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-06-16
506 * Incompatible changes
510 Previous versions of GNU tar assumed shell-style globbing when
511 extracting from or listing an archive. For example:
515 would extract all files whose names end in '.c'. This behavior
516 was not documented and was incompatible with traditional tar
517 implementations. Therefore, starting from this version, GNU tar
518 no longer uses globbing by default. For example, the above invocation
519 is now interpreted as a request to extract from the archive the file
522 To treat member names as globbing patterns, use --wildcards option.
523 If you wish tar to mimic the behavior of versions up to 1.15.90,
524 add --wildcards to the value of the environment variable TAR_OPTIONS.
526 The exact way in which tar interprets member names is controlled by the
527 following command line options:
529 --wildcards use wildcards
530 --anchored patterns match file name start
531 --ignore-case ignore case
532 --wildcards-match-slash wildcards match `/'
534 Each of these options has a '--no-' counterpart that disables its
535 effect (e.g. --no-wildcards).
537 These options affect both the interpretation of member names from
538 command line and that of the exclusion patterns (given with --exclude
539 and --exclude-from options). The defaults are:
541 1. For member names: --no-wildcards --anchored
542 2. For exclusion patterns: --wildcards --no-anchored --wildcards-match-slash
544 The options can appear multiple times in the command line, thereby
545 changing the way command line arguments are interpreted. For example,
546 to use case-insensitive matching in exclude patterns and to revert to
547 case-sensitive matching for the rest of command line, one could write:
549 tar xf foo.tar --ignore-case --exclude-from=FILE --no-ignore-case file.name
551 ** Short option -l is now an alias of --check-links option, which complies
552 with UNIX98. This ends the transition period started with version 1.14.
556 ** New option --transform allows to transform file names before storing them
557 in the archive or member names before extracting. The option takes a
558 sed replace expression as its argument. For example,
560 tar cf foo.tar --transform 's,^,prefix/,'
562 will add 'prefix/' to all file names stored in foo.tar.
564 ** --strip-components option works when deleting and comparing. In previous
565 versions it worked only with --extract.
567 ** New option --show-transformed-names enables display of transformed file
568 or archive. It generalizes --show-stored-names option, introduced in
569 1.15.90. In particular, when creating an archive in verbose mode, it lists
570 member names as stored in the archive, i.e., with any eventual prefixes
571 removed and file name transformations applied. The option is useful,
572 for example, while comparing `tar cv' and `tar tv' outputs.
574 ** New incremental snapshot file format keeps information about file names
575 as well as that about directories.
577 ** The --checkpoint option takes an optional argument specifying the number
578 of records between the two successive checkpoints. Optional dot
579 starting the argument intructs tar to print dots instead of textual
582 ** The --totals option can be used with any tar operation (previous versions
583 understood it only with --create). If an argument to this option is
584 given, it specifies the signal upon delivery of which the statistics
585 is to be printed. Both forms of this option (with and without
586 argument) can be given to in a single invocation of tar.
589 ** Detect attempts to update compressed archives.
592 version 1.15.90 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-02-19
596 ** Any number of -T (--files-from) options may be used in the command line.
597 The file specified with -T may include any valid `tar' options,
598 including another -T option.
599 Compatibility note: older versions of tar would only recognize -C
600 as an option name within the file list file. Now any file whose name
601 starts with - is handled as an option. To insert file names starting with
602 dash, use the --add-file option.
604 ** List files containing null-separated file names are detected and processed
605 automatically. It is no longer necessary to give the --null option.
607 ** New option --no-unquote disables the unquoting of input file names.
608 This is useful for processing output from `find dir -print0'.
609 An orthogonal option --unquote is provided as well.
611 ** New option --test-label tests the archive volume label.
612 If an argument is specified, the label is compared against its value.
613 Tar exits with code 0 if the two strings match, and with code 2 if
616 If no argument is given, the --verbose option is implied. In this case,
617 tar prints the label name if present and exits with code 0.
619 ** New option --show-stored-names. When creating an archive in verbose mode,
620 it lists member names as stored in the archive, i.e., with any eventual
621 prefixes removed. The option is useful, for example, while comparing
622 `tar cv' and `tar tv' outputs.
624 ** New option --to-command pipes the contents of archive members to the
627 ** New option --atime-preserve=system, which uses the O_NOATIME feature
628 of recent Linux kernels to avoid some problems when preserving file
631 ** New option --delay-directory-restore delays restoring modification times
632 and permissions of extracted directories until the end of extraction.
633 This is necessary for restoring from archives with unusual member
634 ordering (in particular, those created with --no-recursion option).
635 This option is implied when restoring from incremental archives.
637 ** New option --restrict prohibits use of some potentially harmful tar
638 options. Currently it disables '!' escape in multi-volume name menu.
640 ** New options --quoting-style and --quote-chars control the way tar
641 quotes member names on output. The --quoting-style takes an argument
642 specifying the quoting style to use (literal, shell, shell-always,
643 c, escape, locale, clocale). The argument to --quote-chars is a string
644 specifying characters to quote, even if the selected quoting style
645 would not quote them otherwise. The option --no-quote-chars is
646 provided to disable quoting certain characters.
648 ** The end-of-volume script (introduced with --info-script option) can
649 get current archive name from the environment variable TAR_ARCHIVE and
650 the volume number from the variable TAR_VOLUME. It can alter the
651 archive name by writing new name to the file descriptor 3.
653 ** Better support for full-resolution time stamps. Tar cannot restore
654 time stamps to full nanosecond resolution, though, until the kernel
655 guys get their act together and give us a system call to set file time
656 stamps to nanosecond resolution.
658 ** The -v option now prints time stamps only to 1-minute resolution,
659 not full resolution, to avoid using up too many output columns.
660 Nanosecond resolution is now supported, but that would be too much.
664 ** Allow non-option arguments to be interspersed with options.
665 ** When extracting or listing archives in old GNU format, tar
666 used to read an extra block of data after a long name header
667 if length of the member name was divisible by block size (512).
668 Consequently, the file pointer was set off and the next member
669 was not processed correctly.
670 ** Previous version created invalid archives when files shrink
672 ** Compare mode (tar d) hung when trying to compare file contents.
673 ** Previous versions in certain cases failed to restore directory
675 ** When creating an archive, do not attempt to store files whose
676 meta-data cannot be stored in the header due to format limitations
677 (for ustar and v7 formats).
678 ** The --version option now also outputs information about copyright,
679 license, and credits. This reverts to the behavior of tar 1.14 and
680 earlier, and conforms to the GNU coding standards. The --license (-L)
681 option introduced in tar 1.15 has been removed, since it's no longer
685 version 1.15.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-12-21
687 This version fixes a bug introduced in 1.15 which caused
688 tar to refuse to extract files from standard input.
691 version 1.15 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-12-20
693 * Compressed archives are recognised automatically, it is no longer
694 necessary to specify -Z, -z, or -j options to read them. Thus, you can
695 now run `tar tf archive.tar.gz'.
697 * When restoring incremental dumps, --one-file-system option
698 prevents directory hierarchies residing on different devices
701 With the previous versions of tar it was dangerous to create
702 incremental dumps with --one-file-system option, since they
703 would recursively remove mount points when restoring from the
704 back up. This change fixes the bug.
706 * Renamed --strip-path to --strip-components for consistency with
709 * Skipping archive members is sped up if the archive media supports
712 * Restore script starts restoring only if it is given --all (-a) option,
713 or some patterns. This is to prevent accidental restores.
715 * `tar --verify' prints a warning if during archive creation some of
716 the file names had their prefixes stripped off.
718 * New option --exclude-caches instructs tar to exclude cache directories
719 automatically on archive creation. Cache directories are those
720 containing a standardized tag file, as specified at:
722 http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/spec.html
724 * New configure option --with-rmt allows to specify full path name to
725 the `rmt' utility. This supersedes DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND variable
726 introduced in version 1.14
728 * New configure variable DEFAULT_RMT_DIR allows to specify the directory
729 where to install `rmt' utility. This is necessary since modifying
730 --libexecdir as was suggested for version 1.14 produced a side effect: it
731 also modified installation prefix for backup scripts (if
732 --enable-backup-scripts was given).
735 ** Fixed flow in recognizing files to be included in incremental dumps.
736 ** Correctly recognize sparse archive members when used with -T option.
737 ** GNU multivolume headers cannot store filenames longer than 100 characters.
738 Do not allow multivolume archives to begin with such filenames.
739 ** If a member with link count > 2 was stored in the archive twice,
740 previous versions of tar were not able to extract it, since they
741 were trying to link the file to itself, which always failed and
742 lead to removing the already extracted copy. Preserve the first
743 extracted copy in such cases.
744 ** Restore script was passing improper argument to tar --listed option (which
745 didn't affect the functionality, but was logically incorrect).
746 ** Fixed verification of created archives.
747 ** Fixed unquoting of file names containing backslash escapes (previous
748 versions failed to recognize \a and \v).
749 ** When attempting to delete a non-existing member from the archive, previous
750 versions of tar used to overwrite last archive block with zeroes.
753 version 1.14 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-05-11
755 * Added support for POSIX.1-2001 and ustar archive formats.
756 * New option --format allows to select the output archive format
757 * The default output format can be selected at configuration time
758 by presetting the environment variable DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT.
759 Allowed values are GNU, V7, OLDGNU and POSIX.
760 * New option --strip-path allows to cut off a given number of
761 path elements from the name of the file being extracted.
763 * New options --index-file, --no-overwrite-dir. The --overwrite-dir
764 option is now the default; use --no-overwrite-dir if you prefer
765 the previous default behavior.
767 * The semantics of -o option is changed. When extracting, it
768 does the same as --no-same-owner GNU tar option. This is compatible
769 with UNIX98 tar. Otherwise, its effect is the same as that of
770 --old-archive option. This latter is deprecated and will be removed
773 * New option --check-links prints a message if not all links are dumped
774 for a file being archived. This corresponds to the UNIX98 -l option.
775 The current semantics of the -l option is retained for compatibility
776 with previous releases, however such usage is strongly deprecated as
777 the option will change to its UNIX98 semantics in the future releases.
779 * New option --occurrence[=N] can be used in conjunction with one of
780 the subcommands --delete, --diff, --extract or --list when a list of
781 files is given either on the command line or via -T option. This
782 option instructs tar to process only the Nth occurrence of each named
783 file. N defaults to 1, so `tar -x -f archive --occurrence filename'
784 extracts the first occurrence of `filename' from `archive'
785 and terminates without scanning to the end of the archive.
787 * New option --pax-option allows to control the handling of POSIX
788 keywords in `pax' extended headers. It is equivalent to `pax'
791 * --incremental and --listed-incremental options work correctly on
792 individual files, as well as on directories.
794 * New scripts: backup (replaces old level-0 and level-1) and restore.
795 The scripts are compiled and installed if --enable-backup-scripts
796 option is given to configure.
798 * By default tar searches "rmt" utility in "$prefix/libexec/rmt",
799 which is consistent with the location where the version of "rmt"
800 included in the package is installed. Previous versions of tar
801 used "/etc/rmt". To install "rmt" to its traditional location,
802 run configure with option --libexecdir=/etc. Otherwise, if you
803 already have rmt installed and wish to use it, instead of the
804 shipped in version, set the variable DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND to
805 the full path name of the utility, e.g., ./configure
806 DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND=/etc/rmt.
808 Notice also that the full path name of the "rmt" utility to
809 use can be set at runtime, by giving option --rmt-command to
812 * Removed obsolete command line options:
813 ** --absolute-paths superseded by --absolute-names
814 ** --block-compress is not needed any longer
815 ** --block-size superseded by --blocking-factor
816 ** --modification-time superseded by --touch
817 ** --read-full-blocks superseded by --read-full-records
818 ** --record-number superseded by --block-number
819 ** --version-control superseded by --backup
821 * New message translations fi (Finnish), gl (Galician), hr (Croatian),
822 hu (Hungarian), ms (Malaysian), nb (Norwegian), ro (Romanian), sk
823 (Slovak), zh_CN (Chinese simplified), zh_TW (Chinese traditional).
824 The code 'no' for Norwegian (Bokmål) has been withdrawn; use 'nb' instead.
829 version 1.13.25 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-26
834 version 1.13.24 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-22
836 * New option --overwrite-dir.
837 * Fixes for buffer overrun, porting, and copyright notice problems.
838 * The message translations for Korean are available again.
841 version 1.13.23 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-13
843 * Bug, porting, and copyright notice fixes.
846 version 1.13.22 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-29
851 version 1.13.21 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-28
853 * Porting and copyright notice fixes.
856 version 1.13.20 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-27
858 * Some bugs were fixed:
860 - hard links to symbolic links
862 * New option --recursion (the default) that is the inverse of --no-recursion.
864 * New options --anchored, --ignore-case, --wildcards,
865 --wildcards-match-slash, and their negations (e.g., --no-anchored).
866 Along with --recursion and --no-recursion, these options control how
867 exclude patterns are interpreted.
869 * The default interpretation of exclude patterns is now --no-anchored
870 --no-ignore-case --recursion --wildcards --wildcards-match-slash.
871 This is a quiet change to the semantics of --exclude. The previous
872 semantics were a failed attempt at backward compatibility but it
873 became clear that the semantics were puzzling and did not satisfy
874 everybody. Rather than continue to try to revive that dead horse we
875 thought it better to substitute cleaner semantics, with options so
876 that you can change the behavior more to your liking.
878 * New message translations for Indonesian and Turkish.
879 The translation for Korean has been withdrawn due to encoding errors.
880 It will be reissued once those are fixed.
883 version 1.13.19 - Paul Eggert, 2001-01-13
885 * The -I option has been withdrawn, as it was buggy and confusing.
886 Eventually it is planned to be reintroduced, with the same meaning as -T.
888 * With an option like -N DATE, if DATE starts with "/" or ".", it is taken
889 to be a file name; the last-modified time of that file is used as the date.
892 version 1.13.18 - Paul Eggert, 2000-10-29
894 * Some security problems have been fixed. `tar -x' now modifies only
895 files under the working directory, unless you also specify an unsafe
896 option like --absolute-names or --overwrite.
898 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -j,
899 and -I is now an alias for -T, for compatibility with Solaris tar.
901 * The manual is now distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
903 * The new environment variable TAR_OPTIONS holds default command-line options.
905 * The --no-recursion option now affects extraction too.
907 * The wording in some diagnostics has been changed slightly.
909 * Snapshot files now record whether each file was accessed via NFS.
910 The new file format is upward- and downward-compatible with the old.
912 * New language supported: da.
914 * Compilation by traditional (K&R) C compilers is no longer supported.
915 If you still use such a compiler, please use GCC instead.
917 * This version of tar works best with GNU gzip test version 1.3 or later.
918 Please see <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>.
920 * `tar --delete -f -' now works again.
923 version 1.13.17 - Paul Eggert, 2000-01-07.
925 * `tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
926 * Diagnostic messages have been made more regular and consistent.
929 version 1.13.16 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-13.
931 * By default, tar now refuses to overwrite an existing file when
932 extracting files from an archive; instead, it removes the file
933 before extracting it. If the existing file is a symbolic link, the
934 link is removed and not the pointed-to file. There is one
935 exception: existing nonempty directories are not removed, nor are
936 their ownerships or permissions extracted. This fixes some
937 longstanding security problems.
939 The new --overwrite option enables the old default behavior.
941 For regular files, tar implements this change by using the O_EXCL
942 option of `open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
943 removes the file and tries again. This is similar to the behavior of
944 the --unlink-first option, but it is faster in the common case of
945 extracting a new directory.
947 * By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of `..'
948 when extracting, and warns about such file names when creating an archive.
949 To enable the old behavior, use the -P or --absolute-names option.
951 * Tar now handles file names with multibyte encodings (e.g., UTF-8, Shift-JIS)
952 correctly. It relies on the mbrtowc function to handle multibyte characters.
954 * The file generated by -g or --listed-incremental now uses a format
955 that is independent of locale, so that users need not worry about
956 locale when restoring a backup. This is needed for proper support
957 of multibyte characters. Old-format files can still be read, and
958 older versions of GNU tar can read new-format files, unless member
959 names have multibyte chars.
961 * Many diagnostics have been changed slightly, so that file names are
962 now output unambiguously. File names in diagnostics now are either
963 `quoted like this' (in the default C locale) or are followed by
964 colon, newline, or space, depending on context. Unprintable
965 characters are escaped with a C-like backslash conventions.
966 Terminating characters (e.g., close-quote, colon, newline)
967 are also escaped as needed.
969 * tar now ignores socket files when creating an archive.
970 Previously tar archived sockets as fifos, which caused problems.
973 version 1.13.15 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-03.
975 * If a file's ctime changes when being archived, report an error.
976 Previously tar looked at mtime, which missed some errors.
979 version 1.13.14 - Paul Eggert, 1999-11-07.
981 * New translations ja, pt_BR.
982 * New options --help and --version for rmt.
983 * Ignore Solaris door files when creating an archive.
986 version 1.13.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-10-11.
988 * Invalid headers in tar files now elicit errors, not just warnings.
989 * `tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
990 * If you specify an invalid date, `tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
991 * `configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
994 version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
996 * `tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
998 * New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
1000 * --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
1002 * `tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
1003 values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
1004 format. This affects archive members with negative or huge time
1005 stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger. The new tar
1006 archives cannot be read by traditional tar, or by older versions of
1007 GNU tar. Use the --old-archive option to revert to the old
1008 behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
1009 and which rejects large files.
1011 * On 32-bit hosts, `tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
1012 the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
1013 2**32). This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
1014 time_t hosts, so `tar' issues a warning.
1016 * `tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
1017 that an archive contains garbage at the end. It attempts to extract
1018 as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
1020 * A read error now causes a nonzero exit status, not just a warning.
1022 * Some diagnostics have been reworded for consistency.
1025 version 1.13.11 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-23.
1027 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -I,
1028 for compatibility with paxutils.
1030 * -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
1031 if no explicit operands were given.
1033 * The `--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
1034 it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
1035 even if they begin with `-'.
1037 * For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
1038 abbreviations like `EST' has been updated to match current practice.
1039 Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
1040 not in tar's hardwired table. Remember, though, that you should use
1041 numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of abbreviations like
1042 `EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
1045 version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
1047 * `tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
1048 out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format. [This
1049 change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
1052 version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
1054 * `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
1055 POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
1057 * `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
1060 * `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
1061 numeric header field.
1064 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
1066 * For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
1067 created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
1068 the original file or directory.
1071 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
1073 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
1075 * When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
1076 to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
1078 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
1081 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
1083 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
1084 initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
1085 exclude a file if it matches any file name component.
1087 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
1088 Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
1089 The symbolic format (e.g., "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC") is for portability
1090 when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
1091 The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
1092 for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
1094 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
1095 for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
1096 This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
1097 larger uids, negative time stamps, etc.
1099 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
1100 uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
1101 and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
1103 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
1105 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
1108 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
1110 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
1113 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
1115 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
1116 this matches historical practice.
1119 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
1121 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
1122 excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
1123 Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
1126 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
1128 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
1131 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
1135 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
1137 * Support for large files, e.g., files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
1138 Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
1139 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
1140 * This release is only for fixes. A more ambitious test release,
1141 with new features, is available as part of the paxutils. Please see:
1142 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/paxutils/
1143 The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
1144 at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
1145 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
1146 but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
1147 Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
1149 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
1152 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
1153 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
1156 * Offer internationalization capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
1157 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
1158 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
1159 * More normalization and cleanup in error messages.
1162 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
1163 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
1164 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
1165 * Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
1166 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
1167 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
1170 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
1171 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
1172 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
1173 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
1174 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
1175 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
1176 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
1177 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
1178 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
1181 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
1182 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
1183 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
1184 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
1185 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
1186 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
1187 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
1188 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
1190 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
1192 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
1194 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
1195 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
1196 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
1197 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
1198 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
1200 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
1202 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
1204 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
1205 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
1206 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
1209 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
1211 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
1213 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
1214 of compress. Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
1215 compress program. --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
1216 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
1218 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
1220 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
1222 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
1225 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
1227 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
1229 * Several Makefile cleanups.
1231 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
1235 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
1236 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
1237 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
1238 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
1239 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
1243 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
1245 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
1246 for it will eventually be removed.
1248 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
1249 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
1251 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
1252 after they are added to the archive.
1254 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
1257 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
1258 is being read or written.
1260 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
1261 omitted from the archive.
1263 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
1264 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
1266 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
1267 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
1269 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
1270 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
1271 around to the beginning.
1273 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
1274 `:' is interpreted as remote. If new option --force-local is given,
1275 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
1277 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
1278 their original values after dumping the file.
1280 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
1283 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
1284 modification and access times.
1286 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
1287 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
1288 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
1291 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
1293 * Filename to -G is optional. -C works right. Names +newer and
1294 +newer-mtime work right.
1296 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
1298 * Sparse files now work correctly.
1300 * +volume is now called +label.
1302 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
1303 what +exclude used to do.
1305 * Exit status is now correct.
1307 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
1309 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
1311 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
1312 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
1313 point instead of waiting for a write error.
1315 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
1316 to people. They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
1317 shouldn't need local modification. These are what we use to do
1318 all our backups at the FSF.
1320 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
1321 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
1322 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
1324 * See ChangeLog for more details.
1328 Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003,
1329 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1331 This file is part of GNU tar.
1333 GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
1334 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1335 the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
1338 GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1339 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1340 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1341 GNU General Public License for more details.
1343 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1344 along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
1345 the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
1346 Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
1350 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
1351 eval: (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'time-stamp)
1352 time-stamp-start: "changes. "
1353 time-stamp-format: "%:y-%02m-%02d"
1354 time-stamp-end: "\n"