tar: --dereference consistency

[chaz/tar] / NEWS

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 58fd2ff3e048787ed81dcd44c9119adaf9471267..1484c555a8fafecab89d8a63bc3ffbbf0e5ceef5 100644 (file)
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2010-09-17
+GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2010-09-23
 Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
 
 \f
@@ -33,6 +33,22 @@ supports this.  For example, recent versions of the Linux kernel
 support setting times on symlinks, and some BSD kernels also support
 symlink permissions.
 
+** --dereference consistency
+
+The --dereference (-h) option now applies to files that are copied
+into or out of archives, independently of other options.  For example,
+if F is a symbolic link and archive.tar contains a regular-file member
+also named F, "tar --overwrite -x -f archive.tar F" now overwrites F
+itself, rather than the file that F points to.  (To overwrite the file
+that F points to, add the --dereference (-h) option.)  Formerly,
+--dereference was intended to apply only when using the -c option, but
+the implementation was not consistent.
+
+Also, the --dereference option no longer affects accesses to other
+files, such as archives and time stamp files.  Symbolic links to these
+files are always followed.  Previously, the links were usually but not
+always followed.
+
 ** Spurious error diagnostics on broken pipe.
 
 When receiving SIGPIPE, tar would exit with error status and