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