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 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
   5
   6 * `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
   7   POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
   8
   9 * `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
  10   as a zero block.
  11
  12 * `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
  13   numeric header field.
  14
  15
  16 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
  17
  18 * For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
  19   created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
  20   the original file or directory.
  21
  22
  23 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
  24
  25 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
  26
  27 * When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
  28   to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
  29
  30 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
  31
  32
  33 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
  34
  35 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
  36   initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
  37   exclude a file if it matches any file name compoment.
  38
  39 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
  40   Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
  41   The symbolic format (e.g. "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC" is for portability
  42   when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
  43   The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
  44   for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
  45
  46 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
  47   for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
  48   This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
  49   larger uids, negative timestamps, etc.
  50
  51 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
  52   uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
  53   and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
  54
  55 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
  56
  57 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
  58
  59
  60 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
  61
  62 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
  63
  64
  65 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
  66
  67 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
  68   this matches historical practice.
  69
  70
  71 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
  72
  73 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
  74   excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
  75   Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
  76
  77
  78 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
  79
  80 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
  81
  82
  83 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
  84
  85 * Bug fixes only.
  86 \f
  87 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
  88
  89 * Support for large files, e.g. files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
  90   Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
  91 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
  92 * This release is only for fixes.  A more ambitious test release,
  93   with new features, is available as part of the paxutils.  Please see:
  94     http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/paxutils/
  95   The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
  96   at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
  97 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
  98   but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
  99   Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
 100 \f
 101 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
 102
 103 Sensitive matters
 104 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
 105 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
 106
 107 Output for humans
 108 * Offer internationalisation capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
 109 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
 110 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
 111 * More normalisation and cleanup in error messages.
 112
 113 Creation
 114 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
 115 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
 116 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
 117 * Recognise creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
 118 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
 119 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
 120
 121 Extraction
 122 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
 123 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
 124 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
 125 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
 126 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
 127 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
 128 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
 129 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
 130 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
 131
 132 Various changes
 133 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
 134 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
 135 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
 136 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
 137 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
 138 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
 139 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
 140 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
 141
 142 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
 143 \f
 144 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
 145
 146 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
 147 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
 148 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
 149 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
 150 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
 151
 152 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
 153 \f
 154 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
 155
 156 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
 157 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
 158 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
 159 DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT.
 160
 161 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
 162
 163 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
 164
 165 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
 166 of compress.  Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
 167 compress program.  --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
 168 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
 169
 170 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
 171
 172 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
 173
 174 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
 175 for --info-script.
 176
 177 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
 178
 179 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
 180
 181 * Several Makefile cleanups.
 182 \f
 183 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
 184
 185 * Many bug fixes.
 186 \f
 187 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
 188 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
 189 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
 190 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
 191 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
 192
 193 * Many bug fixes.
 194
 195 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
 196
 197 * Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
 198 for it will eventually be removed.
 199
 200 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
 201 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
 202
 203 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
 204 after they are added to the archive.
 205
 206 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
 207 the exit status.
 208
 209 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
 210 is being read or written.
 211
 212 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
 213 omitted from the archive.
 214
 215 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
 216 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
 217
 218 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
 219 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
 220
 221 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
 222 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
 223 around to the beginning.
 224
 225 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
 226 `:' is interpreted as remote.  If new option --force-local is given,
 227 then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
 228
 229 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
 230 their original values after dumping the file.
 231
 232 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
 233 what to dump.
 234
 235 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
 236 modification and access times.
 237
 238 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
 239 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
 240 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
 241 long names to work.
 242 \f
 243 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
 244
 245 * Filename to -G is optional.  -C works right.  Names +newer and
 246 +newer-mtime work right.
 247
 248 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
 249
 250 * Sparse files now work correctly.
 251
 252 * +volume is now called +label.
 253
 254 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
 255 what +exclude used to do.
 256
 257 * Exit status is now correct.
 258
 259 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
 260
 261 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
 262
 263 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
 264 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
 265 point instead of waiting for a write error.
 266
 267 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
 268 to people.  They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
 269 shouldn't need local modification.  These are what we use to do
 270 all our backups at the FSF.
 271 \f
 272 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
 273 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
 274 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
 275
 276 * See ChangeLog for more details.