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Revision 1.83 - (show annotations) (download)
Tue May 11 09:25:15 2004 UTC (19 years, 11 months ago) by gray
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: release_1_14
Changes since 1.82: +11 -5 lines
Raised version number to 1.14

1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
5
6 Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
7
8
9 version 1.14 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-05-11
10
11 * Added support for POSIX.1-2001 and ustar archive formats.
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.
18
19 * New options --index-file, --no-overwrite-dir. The --overwrite-dir
20 option is now the default; use --no-overwrite-dir if you prefer
21 the previous default behavior.
22
23 * The semantics of -o option is changed. When extracting, it
24 does the same as --no-same-owner GNU tar option. This is compatible
25 with UNIX98 tar. Otherwise, its effect is the same as that of
26 --old-archive option. This latter is deprecated and will be removed
27 in future.
28
29 * New option --check-links prints a message if not all links are dumped
30 for a file being archived. This corresponds to the UNIX98 -l option.
31 The current semantics of the -l option is retained for compatibility
32 with previous releases, however such usage is strongly deprecated as
33 the option will change to its UNIX98 semantics in the future releases.
34
35 * New option --occurrence[=N] can be used in conjunction with one of
36 the subcommands --delete, --diff, --extract or --list when a list of
37 files is given either on the command line or via -T option. This
38 option instructs tar to process only the Nth occurrence of each named
39 file. N defaults to 1, so `tar -x -f archive --occurrence filename'
40 extracts the first occurrence of `filename' from `archive'
41 and terminates without scanning to the end of the archive.
42
43 * New option --pax-option allows to control the handling of POSIX
44 keywords in `pax' extended headers. It is equivalent to `pax'
45 -o option.
46
47 * --incremental and --listed-incremental options work correctly on
48 individual files, as well as on directories.
49
50 * New scripts: backup (replaces old level-0 and level-1) and restore.
51 The scripts are compiled and installed if --enable-backup-scripts
52 option is given to configure.
53
54 * By default tar searches "rmt" utility in "$prefix/libexec/rmt",
55 which is consistent with the location where the version of "rmt"
56 included in the package is installed. Previous versions of tar
57 used "/etc/rmt". To install "rmt" to its traditional location,
58 run configure with option --libexecdir=/etc. Otherwise, if you
59 already have rmt installed and wish to use it, instead of the
60 shipped in version, set the variable DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND to
61 the full path name of the utility, e.g. ./configure
62 DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND=/etc/rmt.
63
64 Notice also that the full path name of the "rmt" utility to
65 use can be set at runtime, by giving option --rmt-command to
66 tar.
67
68 * Removed obsolete command line options:
69 ** --absolute-paths superseded by --absolute-names
70 ** --block-compress is not needed any longer
71 ** --block-size superseded by --blocking-factor
72 ** --modification-time superseded by --touch
73 ** --read-full-blocks superseded by --read-full-records
74 ** --record-number superseded by --block-number
75 ** --version-control superseded by --backup
76
77 * New message translations fi (Finnish), gl (Galician), hr (Croatian),
78 hu (Hungarian), ms (Malaysian), nb (Norwegian), ro (Romanian), sk
79 (Slovak), zh_CN (Chinese simplified), zh_TW (Chinese traditional).
80 The code 'no' for Norwegian (Bokmål) has been withdrawn; use 'nb' instead.
81
82 * Bug fixes.
83
84 version 1.13.25 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-26
85
86 * Bug fixes.
87
88 version 1.13.24 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-22
89
90 * New option --overwrite-dir.
91 * Fixes for buffer overrun, porting, and copyright notice problems.
92 * The message translations for Korean are available again.
93
94 version 1.13.23 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-13
95
96 * Bug, porting, and copyright notice fixes.
97
98 version 1.13.22 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-29
99
100 * Bug fixes.
101
102 version 1.13.21 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-28
103
104 * Porting and copyright notice fixes.
105
106 version 1.13.20 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-27
107
108 * Some bugs were fixed:
109 - security problems
110 - hard links to symbolic links
111
112 * New option --recursion (the default) that is the inverse of --no-recursion.
113
114 * New options --anchored, --ignore-case, --wildcards,
115 --wildcards-match-slash, and their negations (e.g., --no-anchored).
116 Along with --recursion and --no-recursion, these options control how
117 exclude patterns are interpreted.
118
119 * The default interpretation of exclude patterns is now --no-anchored
120 --no-ignore-case --recursion --wildcards --wildcards-match-slash.
121 This is a quiet change to the semantics of --exclude. The previous
122 semantics were a failed attempt at backward compatibility but it
123 became clear that the semantics were puzzling and did not satisfy
124 everybody. Rather than continue to try to revive that dead horse we
125 thought it better to substitute cleaner semantics, with options so
126 that you can change the behavior more to your liking.
127
128 * New message translations for Indonesian and Turkish.
129 The translation for Korean has been withdrawn due to encoding errors.
130 It will be reissued once those are fixed.
131
132 version 1.13.19 - Paul Eggert, 2001-01-13
133
134 * The -I option has been withdrawn, as it was buggy and confusing.
135 Eventually it is planned to be reintroduced, with the same meaning as -T.
136
137 * With an option like -N DATE, if DATE starts with "/" or ".", it is taken
138 to be a file name; the last-modified time of that file is used as the date.
139
140 version 1.13.18 - Paul Eggert, 2000-10-29
141
142 * Some security problems have been fixed. `tar -x' now modifies only
143 files under the working directory, unless you also specify an unsafe
144 option like --absolute-names or --overwrite.
145
146 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -j,
147 and -I is now an alias for -T, for compatibility with Solaris tar.
148
149 * The manual is now distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
150
151 * The new environment variable TAR_OPTIONS holds default command-line options.
152
153 * The --no-recursion option now affects extraction too.
154
155 * The wording in some diagnostics has been changed slightly.
156
157 * Snapshot files now record whether each file was accessed via NFS.
158 The new file format is upward- and downward-compatible with the old.
159
160 * New language supported: da.
161
162 * Compilation by traditional (K&R) C compilers is no longer supported.
163 If you still use such a compiler, please use GCC instead.
164
165 * This version of tar works best with GNU gzip test version 1.3 or later.
166 Please see <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>.
167
168 * `tar --delete -f -' now works again.
169
170 version 1.13.17 - Paul Eggert, 2000-01-07.
171
172 * `tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
173 * Diagnostic messages have been made more regular and consistent.
174
175 version 1.13.16 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-13.
176
177 * By default, tar now refuses to overwrite an existing file when
178 extracting files from an archive; instead, it removes the file
179 before extracting it. If the existing file is a symbolic link, the
180 link is removed and not the pointed-to file. There is one
181 exception: existing nonempty directories are not removed, nor are
182 their ownerships or permissions extracted. This fixes some
183 longstanding security problems.
184
185 The new --overwrite option enables the old default behavior.
186
187 For regular files, tar implements this change by using the O_EXCL
188 option of `open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
189 removes the file and tries again. This is similar to the behavior of
190 the --unlink-first option, but it is faster in the common case of
191 extracting a new directory.
192
193 * By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of `..'
194 when extracting, and warns about such file names when creating an archive.
195 To enable the old behavior, use the -P or --absolute-names option.
196
197 * Tar now handles file names with multibyte encodings (e.g. UTF-8, Shift-JIS)
198 correctly. It relies on the mbrtowc function to handle multibyte characters.
199
200 * The file generated by -g or --listed-incremental now uses a format
201 that is independent of locale, so that users need not worry about
202 locale when restoring a backup. This is needed for proper support
203 of multibyte characters. Old-format files can still be read, and
204 older versions of GNU tar can read new-format files, unless member
205 names have multibyte chars.
206
207 * Many diagnostics have been changed slightly, so that file names are
208 now output unambiguously. File names in diagnostics now are either
209 `quoted like this' (in the default C locale) or are followed by
210 colon, newline, or space, depending on context. Unprintable
211 characters are escaped with a C-like backslash conventions.
212 Terminating characters (e.g. close-quote, colon, newline)
213 are also escaped as needed.
214
215 * tar now ignores socket files when creating an archive.
216 Previously tar archived sockets as fifos, which caused problems.
217
218 version 1.13.15 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-03.
219
220 * If a file's ctime changes when being archived, report an error.
221 Previously tar looked at mtime, which missed some errors.
222
223 version 1.13.14 - Paul Eggert, 1999-11-07.
224
225 * New translations ja, pt_BR.
226 * New options --help and --version for rmt.
227 * Ignore Solaris door files when creating an archive.
228
229 version 1.13.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-10-11.
230
231 * Invalid headers in tar files now elicit errors, not just warnings.
232 * `tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
233 * If you specify an invalid date, `tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
234 * `configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
235
236 version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
237
238 * `tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
239
240 * New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
241
242 * --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
243
244 * `tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
245 values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
246 format. This affects archive members with negative or huge time
247 stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger. The new tar
248 archives cannot be read by traditional tar, or by older versions of
249 GNU tar. Use the --old-archive option to revert to the old
250 behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
251 and which rejects large files.
252
253 * On 32-bit hosts, `tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
254 the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
255 2**32). This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
256 time_t hosts, so `tar' issues a warning.
257
258 * `tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
259 that an archive contains garbage at the end. It attempts to extract
260 as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
261
262 * A read error now causes a nonzero exit status, not just a warning.
263
264 * Some diagnostics have been reworded for consistency.
265
266
267 version 1.13.11 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-23.
268
269 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -I,
270 for compatibility with paxutils.
271
272 * -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
273 if no explicit operands were given.
274
275 * The `--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
276 it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
277 even if they begin with `-'.
278
279 * For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
280 abbreviations like `EST' has been updated to match current practice.
281 Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
282 not in tar's hardwired table. Remember, though, that you should use
283 numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of abbreviations like
284 `EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
285
286
287 version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
288
289 * `tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
290 out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format. [This
291 change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
292
293
294 version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
295
296 * `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
297 POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
298
299 * `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
300 as a zero block.
301
302 * `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
303 numeric header field.
304
305
306 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
307
308 * For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
309 created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
310 the original file or directory.
311
312
313 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
314
315 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
316
317 * When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
318 to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
319
320 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
321
322
323 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
324
325 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
326 initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
327 exclude a file if it matches any file name component.
328
329 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
330 Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
331 The symbolic format (e.g. "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC") is for portability
332 when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
333 The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
334 for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
335
336 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
337 for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
338 This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
339 larger uids, negative time stamps, etc.
340
341 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
342 uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
343 and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
344
345 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
346
347 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
348
349
350 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
351
352 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
353
354
355 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
356
357 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
358 this matches historical practice.
359
360
361 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
362
363 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
364 excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
365 Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
366
367
368 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
369
370 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
371
372
373 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
374
375 * Bug fixes only.
376
377 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
378
379 * Support for large files, e.g. files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
380 Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
381 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
382 * This release is only for fixes. A more ambitious test release,
383 with new features, is available as part of the paxutils. Please see:
384 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/paxutils/
385 The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
386 at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
387 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
388 but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
389 Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
390
391 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
392
393 Sensitive matters
394 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
395 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
396
397 Output for humans
398 * Offer internationalization capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
399 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
400 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
401 * More normalization and cleanup in error messages.
402
403 Creation
404 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
405 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
406 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
407 * Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
408 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
409 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
410
411 Extraction
412 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
413 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
414 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
415 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
416 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
417 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
418 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
419 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
420 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
421
422 Various changes
423 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
424 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
425 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
426 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
427 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
428 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
429 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
430 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
431
432 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
433
434 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
435
436 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
437 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
438 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
439 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
440 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
441
442 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
443
444 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
445
446 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
447 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
448 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
449 DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT.
450
451 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
452
453 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
454
455 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
456 of compress. Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
457 compress program. --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
458 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
459
460 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
461
462 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
463
464 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
465 for --info-script.
466
467 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
468
469 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
470
471 * Several Makefile cleanups.
472
473 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
474
475 * Many bug fixes.
476
477 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
478 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
479 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
480 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
481 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
482
483 * Many bug fixes.
484
485 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
486
487 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
488 for it will eventually be removed.
489
490 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
491 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
492
493 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
494 after they are added to the archive.
495
496 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
497 the exit status.
498
499 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
500 is being read or written.
501
502 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
503 omitted from the archive.
504
505 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
506 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
507
508 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
509 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
510
511 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
512 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
513 around to the beginning.
514
515 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
516 `:' is interpreted as remote. If new option --force-local is given,
517 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
518
519 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
520 their original values after dumping the file.
521
522 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
523 what to dump.
524
525 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
526 modification and access times.
527
528 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
529 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
530 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
531 long names to work.
532
533 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
534
535 * Filename to -G is optional. -C works right. Names +newer and
536 +newer-mtime work right.
537
538 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
539
540 * Sparse files now work correctly.
541
542 * +volume is now called +label.
543
544 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
545 what +exclude used to do.
546
547 * Exit status is now correct.
548
549 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
550
551 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
552
553 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
554 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
555 point instead of waiting for a write error.
556
557 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
558 to people. They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
559 shouldn't need local modification. These are what we use to do
560 all our backups at the FSF.
561
562 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
563 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
564 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
565
566 * See ChangeLog for more details.
567
568
569
570 Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003
571 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
572
573 This file is part of GNU tar.
574
575 GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
576 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
577 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
578 any later version.
579
580 GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
581 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
582 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
583 GNU General Public License for more details.
584
585 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
586 along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
587 the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
588 Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
589
590 Local variables:
591 mode: outline
592 paragraph-separate: "[ ]*$"
593 end:

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