Dogcows Code - chaz/tar/blob - NEWS

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  38   The translation for Korean has been withdrawn due to encoding errors.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  43 * The -I option has been withdrawn, as it was buggy and confusing.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