Dogcows Code - chaz/tar/blob - NEWS

   1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
   2 Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   3
   4 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
   5
   6 Sensitive matters
   7 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
   8 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
   9
  10 Output for humans
  11 * Offer internationalisation capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
  12 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
  13 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
  14 * More normalisation and cleanup in error messages.
  15
  16 Creation
  17 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
  18 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
  19 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
  20 * Recognise creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
  21 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
  22 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
  23
  24 Extraction
  25 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
  26 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
  27 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
  28 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
  29 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
  30 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
  31 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
  32 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
  33 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
  34
  35 Various changes
  36 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
  37 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
  38 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
  39 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
  40 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
  41 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
  42 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
  43 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
  44
  45 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
  46 \f
  47 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
  48
  49 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
  50 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
  51 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
  52 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
  53 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
  54
  55 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
  56 \f
  57 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
  58
  59 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
  60 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
  61 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
  62 DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT.
  63
  64 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
  65
  66 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
  67
  68 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
  69 of compress.  Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
  70 compress program.  --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
  71 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
  72
  73 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
  74
  75 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
  76
  77 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
  78 for --info-script.
  79
  80 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
  81
  82 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
  83
  84 * Several Makefile cleanups.
  85 \f
  86 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
  87
  88 * Many bug fixes.
  89 \f
  90 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
  91 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
  92 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
  93 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
  94 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
  95
  96 * Many bug fixes.
  97
  98 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
  99
 100 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
 101 for it will eventually be removed.
 102
 103 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
 104 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
 105
 106 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
 107 after they are added to the archive.
 108
 109 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
 110 the exit status.
 111
 112 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
 113 is being read or written.
 114
 115 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
 116 omitted from the archive.
 117
 118 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
 119 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
 120
 121 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
 122 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
 123
 124 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
 125 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
 126 around to the beginning.
 127
 128 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
 129 `:' is interpreted as remote.  If new option --force-local is given,
 130 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
 131
 132 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
 133 their original values after dumping the file.
 134
 135 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
 136 what to dump.
 137
 138 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
 139 modification and access times.
 140
 141 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
 142 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
 143 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
 144 long names to work.
 145 \f
 146 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
 147
 148 * Filename to -G is optional.  -C works right.  Names +newer and
 149 +newer-mtime work right.
 150
 151 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
 152
 153 * Sparse files now work correctly.
 154
 155 * +volume is now called +label.
 156
 157 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
 158 what +exclude used to do.
 159
 160 * Exit status is now correct.
 161
 162 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
 163
 164 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
 165
 166 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
 167 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
 168 point instead of waiting for a write error.
 169
 170 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
 171 to people.  They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
 172 shouldn't need local modification.  These are what we use to do
 173 all our backups at the FSF.
 174 \f
 175 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
 176 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
 177 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
 178
 179 * See ChangeLog for more details.