Dogcows Code - chaz/tar/blob - NEWS

   1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
   2 Copyright 1994, 1995-1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   3
   4
   5 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
   6
   7 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
   8   initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
   9   exclude a file if it maches any file name compoment.
  10
  11 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
  12   Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
  13   The symbolic format (e.g. "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC" is for portability
  14   when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
  15   The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
  16   for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
  17
  18 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
  19   for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
  20   This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
  21   larger uids, negative timestamps, etc.
  22
  23 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
  24   uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
  25   and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
  26
  27 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
  28
  29 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
  30
  31
  32 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
  33
  34 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
  35
  36
  37 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
  38
  39 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
  40   this matches historical practice.
  41
  42
  43 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
  44
  45 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
  46   excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
  47   Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
  48
  49
  50 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
  51
  52 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
  53
  54
  55 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
  56
  57 * Bug fixes only.
  58 \f
  59 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
  60
  61 * Support for large files, e.g. files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
  62   Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
  63 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
  64 * This release is only for fixes.  A more ambitious test release,
  65   with new features, is available as part of the paxutils.  Please see:
  66     http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/paxutils/
  67   The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
  68   at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
  69 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
  70   but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
  71   Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
  72 \f
  73 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
  74
  75 Sensitive matters
  76 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
  77 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
  78
  79 Output for humans
  80 * Offer internationalisation capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
  81 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
  82 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
  83 * More normalisation and cleanup in error messages.
  84
  85 Creation
  86 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
  87 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
  88 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
  89 * Recognise creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
  90 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
  91 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
  92
  93 Extraction
  94 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
  95 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
  96 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
  97 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
  98 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
  99 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
 100 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
 101 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
 102 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
 103
 104 Various changes
 105 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
 106 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
 107 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
 108 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
 109 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
 110 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
 111 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
 112 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
 113
 114 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
 115 \f
 116 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
 117
 118 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
 119 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
 120 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
 121 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
 122 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
 123
 124 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
 125 \f
 126 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
 127
 128 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
 129 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
 130 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
 131 DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT.
 132
 133 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
 134
 135 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
 136
 137 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
 138 of compress.  Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
 139 compress program.  --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
 140 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
 141
 142 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
 143
 144 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
 145
 146 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
 147 for --info-script.
 148
 149 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
 150
 151 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
 152
 153 * Several Makefile cleanups.
 154 \f
 155 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
 156
 157 * Many bug fixes.
 158 \f
 159 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
 160 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
 161 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
 162 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
 163 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
 164
 165 * Many bug fixes.
 166
 167 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
 168
 169 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
 170 for it will eventually be removed.
 171
 172 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
 173 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
 174
 175 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
 176 after they are added to the archive.
 177
 178 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
 179 the exit status.
 180
 181 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
 182 is being read or written.
 183
 184 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
 185 omitted from the archive.
 186
 187 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
 188 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
 189
 190 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
 191 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
 192
 193 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
 194 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
 195 around to the beginning.
 196
 197 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
 198 `:' is interpreted as remote.  If new option --force-local is given,
 199 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
 200
 201 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
 202 their original values after dumping the file.
 203
 204 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
 205 what to dump.
 206
 207 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
 208 modification and access times.
 209
 210 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
 211 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
 212 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
 213 long names to work.
 214 \f
 215 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
 216
 217 * Filename to -G is optional.  -C works right.  Names +newer and
 218 +newer-mtime work right.
 219
 220 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
 221
 222 * Sparse files now work correctly.
 223
 224 * +volume is now called +label.
 225
 226 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
 227 what +exclude used to do.
 228
 229 * Exit status is now correct.
 230
 231 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
 232
 233 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
 234
 235 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
 236 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
 237 point instead of waiting for a write error.
 238
 239 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
 240 to people.  They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
 241 shouldn't need local modification.  These are what we use to do
 242 all our backups at the FSF.
 243 \f
 244 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
 245 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
 246 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
 247
 248 * See ChangeLog for more details.