GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
Copyright 1994, 1995-1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
+
+* `tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
+
+* New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
+
+* --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
+
+* `tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
+ values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
+ format. This affects archive members with negative or huge time
+ stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger. The new tar
+ archives cannot be read by traditional tar, or by older versions of
+ GNU tar. Use the --old-archive option to revert to the old
+ behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
+ and which rejects large files.
+
+* On 32-bit hosts, `tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
+ the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
+ 2**32). This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
+ time_t hosts, so `tar' issues a warning.
+
+* `tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
+ that an archive contains garbage at the end. It attempts to extract
+ as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
+
+* A read error now causes a nonzero exit status, not just a warning.
+
+* Some diagnostics have been reworded for consistency.
+
+
+version 1.13.11 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-23.
+
+* The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -I,
+ for compatibility with paxutils.
+
+* -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
+ if no explicit operands were given.
+
+* The `--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
+ it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
+ even if they begin with `-'.
+
+* For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
+ abbreviations like `EST' has been updated to match current practice.
+ Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
+ not in tar's hardwired table. Remember, though, that you should use
+ numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of abbreviations like
+ `EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
+
+
+version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
+
+* `tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
+ out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format. [This
+ change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
+
+
+version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
+
+* `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
+ POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
+
+* `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
+ as a zero block.
+
+* `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
+ numeric header field.
+
+
version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
* For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
the original file or directory.
+
version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
* --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
* An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
- exclude a file if it matches any file name compoment.
+ exclude a file if it matches any file name component.
* The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
* When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
- larger uids, negative timestamps, etc.
+ larger uids, negative time stamps, etc.
* When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
* Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
Output for humans
-* Offer internationalisation capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
+* Offer internationalization capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
* Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
* Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
-* More normalisation and cleanup in error messages.
+* More normalization and cleanup in error messages.
Creation
* For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
* Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
* New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
-* Recognise creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
+* Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
* Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
* Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.