GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
-Copyright © 1994, 1995-1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-
-version 1.12.64009 - Paul Eggert, 1999-03-20.
-
-This is an unofficial port of GNU `tar' 1.12 to large file
-environments like AIX 4.2, HP-UX 10.20, IRIX 6.2, and Solaris 2.6 that
-(among other things) rely on integer system types longer than `long'.
-Please send bug reports specific to this unofficial version of GNU `tar'
-to <eggert@twinsun.com>.
-
-This is not intended to be a forked release for GNU tar; it's
-just an interim experimental release, mostly intended for
-large file hosts. The patches of this
-release have all been (or will be) submitted via the usual channels and
-they should no longer be needed once the next official release
-of GNU tar is out.
+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.
+
+* When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
+ to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
+
+* --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
+
+
+version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
+
+* 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 component.
+
+* The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
+ Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
+ The symbolic format (e.g. "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC" is for portability
+ when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
+ The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
+ for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
+
+* 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 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
+ and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
+
+* tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
+
+* New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
+
+
+version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
+
+* Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
+
+
+version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
+
+* Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
+ this matches historical practice.
+
+
+version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
+
+* A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
+ excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
+ Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
+
+
+version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
+
+* Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
+
+
+version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
+
+* Bug fixes only.
+\f
+version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
+
+* Support for large files, e.g. files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
+ Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
+* Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
+* This release is only for fixes. A more ambitious test release,
+ with new features, is available as part of the paxutils. Please see:
+ http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/paxutils/
+ The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
+ at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
+* An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
+ but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
+ Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
\f
Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
* 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.