1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
11 * Added support for POSIX.1-2001 archive format.
12 * New option --format allows to select the output archive format
13 * The default output format can be selected at configuration time
14 by presetting the environment variable DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT.
15 Allowed values are GNU, V7, OLDGNU and POSIX.
16 * New option --strip-path allows to cut off a given number of
17 path elements from the name of the file being extracted.
21 * New options --index-file, --no-overwrite-dir. The --overwrite-dir
22 option is now the default; use --no-overwrite-dir if you prefer
23 the previous default behavior.
25 * The semantics of -o option is changed. When extracting, it
26 does the same as --no-same-owner GNU tar option. This is compatible
27 with UNIX98 tar. Otherwise, its effect is the same as that of
28 --old-archive option. This latter is deprecated and will be removed
31 * New option --check-links prints a message if not all links are dumped
32 for a file being archived. This corresponds to the UNIX98 -l option.
33 The current semantics of the -l option is retained for compatibility
34 with previous releases, however such usage is strongly deprecated as
35 the option will change to its UNIX98 semantics in the future releases.
37 * New option --occurrence[=N] can be used in conjunction with one of
38 the subcommands --delete, --diff, --extract or --list when a list of
39 files is given either on the command line or via -T option. This
40 option instructs tar to process only the Nth occurrence of each named
41 file. N defaults to 1, so `tar -x -f archive --occurrence filename'
42 extracts the first occurrence of `filename' from `archive'
43 and terminates without scanning to the end of the archive.
45 * Removed obsolete command line options:
46 ** --absolute-paths superseded by --absolute-names
47 ** --block-compress is not needed any longer
48 ** --block-size superseded by --blocking-factor
49 ** --modification-time superseded by --touch
50 ** --read-full-blocks superseded by --read-full-records
51 ** --record-number superseded by --block-number
52 ** --version-control superseded by --backup
54 * New message translations fi (Finnish), gl (Galician), hr (Croatian),
55 hu (Hungarian), ms (Malaysian), nb (Norwegian), ro (Romanian), sk
56 (Slovak), zh_CN (Chinese simplified), zh_TW (Chinese traditional).
57 The code 'no' for Norwegian has been withdrawn; use 'nb' instead.
59 version 1.13.25 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-26
63 version 1.13.24 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-22
65 * New option --overwrite-dir.
66 * Fixes for buffer overrun, porting, and copyright notice problems.
67 * The message translations for Korean are available again.
69 version 1.13.23 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-13
71 * Bug, porting, and copyright notice fixes.
73 version 1.13.22 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-29
77 version 1.13.21 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-28
79 * Porting and copyright notice fixes.
81 version 1.13.20 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-27
83 * Some bugs were fixed:
85 - hard links to symbolic links
87 * New option --recursion (the default) that is the inverse of --no-recursion.
89 * New options --anchored, --ignore-case, --wildcards,
90 --wildcards-match-slash, and their negations (e.g., --no-anchored).
91 Along with --recursion and --no-recursion, these options control how
92 exclude patterns are interpreted.
94 * The default interpretation of exclude patterns is now --no-anchored
95 --no-ignore-case --recursion --wildcards --wildcards-match-slash.
96 This is a quiet change to the semantics of --exclude. The previous
97 semantics were a failed attempt at backward compatibility but it
98 became clear that the semantics were puzzling and did not satisfy
99 everybody. Rather than continue to try to revive that dead horse we
100 thought it better to substitute cleaner semantics, with options so
101 that you can change the behavior more to your liking.
103 * New message translations for Indonesian and Turkish.
104 The translation for Korean has been withdrawn due to encoding errors.
105 It will be reissued once those are fixed.
107 version 1.13.19 - Paul Eggert, 2001-01-13
109 * The -I option has been withdrawn, as it was buggy and confusing.
110 Eventually it is planned to be reintroduced, with the same meaning as -T.
112 * With an option like -N DATE, if DATE starts with "/" or ".", it is taken
113 to be a file name; the last-modified time of that file is used as the date.
115 version 1.13.18 - Paul Eggert, 2000-10-29
117 * Some security problems have been fixed. `tar -x' now modifies only
118 files under the working directory, unless you also specify an unsafe
119 option like --absolute-names or --overwrite.
121 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -j,
122 and -I is now an alias for -T, for compatibility with Solaris tar.
124 * The manual is now distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
126 * The new environment variable TAR_OPTIONS holds default command-line options.
128 * The --no-recursion option now affects extraction too.
130 * The wording in some diagnostics has been changed slightly.
132 * Snapshot files now record whether each file was accessed via NFS.
133 The new file format is upward- and downward-compatible with the old.
135 * New language supported: da.
137 * Compilation by traditional (K&R) C compilers is no longer supported.
138 If you still use such a compiler, please use GCC instead.
140 * This version of tar works best with GNU gzip test version 1.3 or later.
141 Please see <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>.
143 * `tar --delete -f -' now works again.
145 version 1.13.17 - Paul Eggert, 2000-01-07.
147 * `tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
148 * Diagnostic messages have been made more regular and consistent.
150 version 1.13.16 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-13.
152 * By default, tar now refuses to overwrite an existing file when
153 extracting files from an archive; instead, it removes the file
154 before extracting it. If the existing file is a symbolic link, the
155 link is removed and not the pointed-to file. There is one
156 exception: existing nonempty directories are not removed, nor are
157 their ownerships or permissions extracted. This fixes some
158 longstanding security problems.
160 The new --overwrite option enables the old default behavior.
162 For regular files, tar implements this change by using the O_EXCL
163 option of `open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
164 removes the file and tries again. This is similar to the behavior of
165 the --unlink-first option, but it is faster in the common case of
166 extracting a new directory.
168 * By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of `..'
169 when extracting, and warns about such file names when creating an archive.
170 To enable the old behavior, use the -P or --absolute-names option.
172 * Tar now handles file names with multibyte encodings (e.g. UTF-8, Shift-JIS)
173 correctly. It relies on the mbrtowc function to handle multibyte characters.
175 * The file generated by -g or --listed-incremental now uses a format
176 that is independent of locale, so that users need not worry about
177 locale when restoring a backup. This is needed for proper support
178 of multibyte characters. Old-format files can still be read, and
179 older versions of GNU tar can read new-format files, unless member
180 names have multibyte chars.
182 * Many diagnostics have been changed slightly, so that file names are
183 now output unambiguously. File names in diagnostics now are either
184 `quoted like this' (in the default C locale) or are followed by
185 colon, newline, or space, depending on context. Unprintable
186 characters are escaped with a C-like backslash conventions.
187 Terminating characters (e.g. close-quote, colon, newline)
188 are also escaped as needed.
190 * tar now ignores socket files when creating an archive.
191 Previously tar archived sockets as fifos, which caused problems.
193 version 1.13.15 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-03.
195 * If a file's ctime changes when being archived, report an error.
196 Previously tar looked at mtime, which missed some errors.
198 version 1.13.14 - Paul Eggert, 1999-11-07.
200 * New translations ja, pt_BR.
201 * New options --help and --version for rmt.
202 * Ignore Solaris door files when creating an archive.
204 version 1.13.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-10-11.
206 * Invalid headers in tar files now elicit errors, not just warnings.
207 * `tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
208 * If you specify an invalid date, `tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
209 * `configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
211 version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
213 * `tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
215 * New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
217 * --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
219 * `tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
220 values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
221 format. This affects archive members with negative or huge time
222 stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger. The new tar
223 archives cannot be read by traditional tar, or by older versions of
224 GNU tar. Use the --old-archive option to revert to the old
225 behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
226 and which rejects large files.
228 * On 32-bit hosts, `tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
229 the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
230 2**32). This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
231 time_t hosts, so `tar' issues a warning.
233 * `tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
234 that an archive contains garbage at the end. It attempts to extract
235 as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
237 * A read error now causes a nonzero exit status, not just a warning.
239 * Some diagnostics have been reworded for consistency.
242 version 1.13.11 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-23.
244 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -I,
245 for compatibility with paxutils.
247 * -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
248 if no explicit operands were given.
250 * The `--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
251 it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
252 even if they begin with `-'.
254 * For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
255 abbreviations like `EST' has been updated to match current practice.
256 Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
257 not in tar's hardwired table. Remember, though, that you should use
258 numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of abbreviations like
259 `EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
262 version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
264 * `tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
265 out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format. [This
266 change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
269 version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
271 * `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
272 POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
274 * `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
277 * `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
278 numeric header field.
281 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
283 * For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
284 created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
285 the original file or directory.
288 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
290 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
292 * When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
293 to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
295 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
298 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
300 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
301 initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
302 exclude a file if it matches any file name component.
304 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
305 Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
306 The symbolic format (e.g. "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC") is for portability
307 when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
308 The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
309 for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
311 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
312 for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
313 This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
314 larger uids, negative time stamps, etc.
316 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
317 uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
318 and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
320 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
322 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
325 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
327 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
330 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
332 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
333 this matches historical practice.
336 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
338 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
339 excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
340 Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
343 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
345 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
348 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
352 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
354 * Support for large files, e.g. files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
355 Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
356 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
357 * This release is only for fixes. A more ambitious test release,
358 with new features, is available as part of the paxutils. Please see:
359 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/paxutils/
360 The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
361 at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
362 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
363 but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
364 Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
366 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
369 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
370 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
373 * Offer internationalization capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
374 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
375 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
376 * More normalization and cleanup in error messages.
379 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
380 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
381 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
382 * Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
383 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
384 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
387 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
388 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
389 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
390 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
391 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
392 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
393 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
394 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
395 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
398 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
399 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
400 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
401 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
402 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
403 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
404 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
405 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
407 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
409 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
411 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
412 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
413 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
414 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
415 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
417 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
419 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
421 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
422 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
423 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
426 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
428 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
430 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
431 of compress. Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
432 compress program. --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
433 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
435 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
437 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
439 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
442 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
444 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
446 * Several Makefile cleanups.
448 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
452 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
453 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
454 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
455 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
456 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
460 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
462 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
463 for it will eventually be removed.
465 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
466 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
468 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
469 after they are added to the archive.
471 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
474 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
475 is being read or written.
477 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
478 omitted from the archive.
480 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
481 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
483 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
484 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
486 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
487 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
488 around to the beginning.
490 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
491 `:' is interpreted as remote. If new option --force-local is given,
492 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
494 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
495 their original values after dumping the file.
497 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
500 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
501 modification and access times.
503 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
504 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
505 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
508 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
510 * Filename to -G is optional. -C works right. Names +newer and
511 +newer-mtime work right.
513 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
515 * Sparse files now work correctly.
517 * +volume is now called +label.
519 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
520 what +exclude used to do.
522 * Exit status is now correct.
524 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
526 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
528 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
529 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
530 point instead of waiting for a write error.
532 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
533 to people. They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
534 shouldn't need local modification. These are what we use to do
535 all our backups at the FSF.
537 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
538 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
539 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
541 * See ChangeLog for more details.
545 Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003
546 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
548 This file is part of GNU tar.
550 GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
551 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
552 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
555 GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
556 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
557 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
558 GNU General Public License for more details.
560 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
561 along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
562 the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
563 Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
567 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"