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 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
   5
   6 * For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
   7   created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
   8   the original file or directory.
   9
  10 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
  11
  12 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
  13
  14 * When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
  15   to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
  16
  17 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
  18
  19
  20 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
  21
  22 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
  23   initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
  24   exclude a file if it matches any file name compoment.
  25
  26 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
  27   Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
  28   The symbolic format (e.g. "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC" is for portability
  29   when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
  30   The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
  31   for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
  32
  33 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
  34   for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
  35   This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
  36   larger uids, negative timestamps, etc.
  37
  38 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
  39   uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
  40   and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
  41
  42 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
  43
  44 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
  45
  46
  47 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
  48
  49 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
  50
  51
  52 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
  53
  54 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
  55   this matches historical practice.
  56
  57
  58 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
  59
  60 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
  61   excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
  62   Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
  63
  64
  65 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
  66
  67 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
  68
  69
  70 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
  71
  72 * Bug fixes only.
  73 \f
  74 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
  75
  76 * Support for large files, e.g. files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
  77   Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
  78 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
  79 * This release is only for fixes.  A more ambitious test release,
  80   with new features, is available as part of the paxutils.  Please see:
  81     http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/paxutils/
  82   The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
  83   at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
  84 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
  85   but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
  86   Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
  87 \f
  88 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
  89
  90 Sensitive matters
  91 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
  92 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
  93
  94 Output for humans
  95 * Offer internationalisation capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
  96 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
  97 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
  98 * More normalisation and cleanup in error messages.
  99
 100 Creation
 101 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
 102 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
 103 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
 104 * Recognise creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
 105 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
 106 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
 107
 108 Extraction
 109 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
 110 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
 111 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
 112 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
 113 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
 114 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
 115 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
 116 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
 117 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
 118
 119 Various changes
 120 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
 121 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
 122 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
 123 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
 124 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
 125 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
 126 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
 127 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
 128
 129 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
 130 \f
 131 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
 132
 133 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
 134 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
 135 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
 136 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
 137 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
 138
 139 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
 140 \f
 141 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
 142
 143 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
 144 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
 145 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
 146 DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT.
 147
 148 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
 149
 150 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
 151
 152 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
 153 of compress.  Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
 154 compress program.  --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
 155 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
 156
 157 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
 158
 159 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
 160
 161 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
 162 for --info-script.
 163
 164 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
 165
 166 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
 167
 168 * Several Makefile cleanups.
 169 \f
 170 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
 171
 172 * Many bug fixes.
 173 \f
 174 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
 175 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
 176 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
 177 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
 178 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
 179
 180 * Many bug fixes.
 181
 182 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
 183
 184 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
 185 for it will eventually be removed.
 186
 187 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
 188 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
 189
 190 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
 191 after they are added to the archive.
 192
 193 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
 194 the exit status.
 195
 196 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
 197 is being read or written.
 198
 199 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
 200 omitted from the archive.
 201
 202 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
 203 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
 204
 205 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
 206 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
 207
 208 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
 209 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
 210 around to the beginning.
 211
 212 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
 213 `:' is interpreted as remote.  If new option --force-local is given,
 214 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
 215
 216 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
 217 their original values after dumping the file.
 218
 219 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
 220 what to dump.
 221
 222 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
 223 modification and access times.
 224
 225 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
 226 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
 227 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
 228 long names to work.
 229 \f
 230 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
 231
 232 * Filename to -G is optional.  -C works right.  Names +newer and
 233 +newer-mtime work right.
 234
 235 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
 236
 237 * Sparse files now work correctly.
 238
 239 * +volume is now called +label.
 240
 241 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
 242 what +exclude used to do.
 243
 244 * Exit status is now correct.
 245
 246 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
 247
 248 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
 249
 250 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
 251 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
 252 point instead of waiting for a write error.
 253
 254 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
 255 to people.  They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
 256 shouldn't need local modification.  These are what we use to do
 257 all our backups at the FSF.
 258 \f
 259 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
 260 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
 261 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
 262
 263 * See ChangeLog for more details.