-GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes.
+GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2010-09-12
Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
+
+\f
+version 1.23.90 - (Git)
+
+* The --full-time option.
+
+New command line option `--full-time' instructs tar to output file
+time stamps to the full resolution.
+
+* Bugfixes.
+
+** More reliable directory traversal when creating archives
+
+Tar now checks for inconsistencies caused when a file system is
+modified while tar is creating an archive. In the new approach, tar
+maintains a cache of file descriptors to directories, so it uses more
+file descriptors before, but it gracefully adjusts to system limits on
+the number of file descriptors. The new checks are implemented via
+the openat, dirfd, fdopendir, fstatat, and readlinkat calls
+standardized by POSIX.1-2008. On an older system where these calls do
+not exist or do not return useful results, tar emulates the calls at
+some cost in efficiency and reliability.
+
+** Spurious error diagnostics on broken pipe.
+
+When receiving SIGPIPE, tar would exit with error status and
+"write error" diagnostics. In particular, this occurred if
+invoked as in the example below:
+
+ tar tf archive.tar | head -n 1
+
+** --remove-files
+
+Tar --remove-files failed to remove a directory which contained
+symlinks to another files within that directory.
+
+** --test-label behavior
+
+In case of a mismatch, `tar --test-label LABEL' exits with code 1,
+not 2 as it did in previous versions.
+
+The `--verbose' option used with `--test-label' provides additional
+diagnostics.
+
+Several volume labels may be specified in a command line, e.g.:
+
+ tar --test-label -f archive 'My volume' 'New volume' 'Test volume'
+
+In this case, tar exits with code 0 if any one of the arguments
+matches the actual volume label.
+
+** --label used with --update
+
+The `--label' option can be used with `--update' to prevent accidental
+update of an archive:
+
+ tar -rf archive --label 'My volume' .
+
+This did not work in previous versions, in spite of what the docs said.
+
+** --record-size and --tape-length (-L) options
+
+Usual size suffixes are allowed for these options. For example,
+-L10k stands for a 10 kilobyte tape length.
+
+** Fix dead loop on extracting existing symlinks with the -k option.
+
+\f
+version 1.23 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-03-10
+
+* Record size autodetection
+
+When listing or extracting archives, the actual record size is
+reported only if the archive is read from a device (as opposed
+to regular files and pipes).
+
+* Seekable archives
+
+When a read-only operation (e.g. --list or --extract) is requested
+on a regular file, tar attemtps to speed up accesses by using lseek.
+
+* New command line option `--warning'
+
+The `--warning' command line option allows to suppress or enable
+particular warning messages during `tar' run. It takes a single
+argument (a `keyword'), identifying the class of warning messages
+to affect. If the argument is prefixed with `no-', such warning
+messages are suppressed. For example,
+
+ tar --warning=no-alone-zero-block -x -f archive
+
+suppresses the output of `A lone zero block' diagnostics, which is
+normally issued if `archive' ends with a single block of zeros.
+
+See Tar Manual, section 3.9 "Controlling Warning Messages", for a
+detailed discussion.
+
+* New command line option `--level'
+
+The `--level=N' option sets the incremental dump level N. It
+is valid when used in conjunction with the -c and --listed-incremental
+options. So far the only meaningful value for N is 0. The
+`--level=0' option forces creating the level 0 dump, by truncating
+the snapshot file if it exists.
+
+* Files removed during incremental dumps
+
+If a file or directory is removed while incremental dump is
+in progress, tar exact actions depend on whether this file
+was explicitly listed in the command line, or was found
+during file system scan.
+
+If the file was explicitly listed in the command line, tar
+issues error message and exits with the code 2, meaning
+fatal error.
+
+Otherwise, if the file was found during the file system scan,
+tar issues a warning, saying "File removed before we read it",
+and sets exit code to 1, which means "some files differ".
+If the --warning=no-file-removed option is given, no warning
+is issued and exit code remains 0.
+
+* Modification times of PAX extended headers.
+
+Modification times in ustar header blocks of extended headers
+are set to mtimes of the corresponding archive members. This
+can be overridden by the
+
+ --pax-opion='exthdr.mtime=STRING'
+
+command line option. The STRING is either number of seconds since
+the Epoch or a `Time reference' (see below).
+
+Modification times in ustar header blocks of global extended
+headers are set to the time when tar was invoked.
+
+This can be overridden by the
+
+ --pax-opion='globexthdr.mtime=STRING'
+
+command line option. The STRING is either number of seconds since
+the Epoch or a `Time reference' (see below).
+
+* Time references in --pax-option argument.
+
+Any value from the --pax-option argument that is enclosed in a pair
+of curly braces represents a time reference. The string between the
+braces is understood either as a textual time representation, as described in
+chapter 7, "Date input formats", of the Tar manual, or as a name of
+an existing file, starting with `/' or `.'. In the latter
+case, it is replaced with the modification time of that file.
+
+* Environment of --to-command script.
+
+The environment passed to the --to-command script is extended with
+the following variables:
+
+ TAR_VERSION GNU tar version number
+ TAR_ARCHIVE The name of the archive
+ TAR_VOLUME Ordinal number of the volume
+ TAR_FORMAT Format of the archive
+ TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR Current blocking factor
+
+* Bugfixes
+** Fix handling of hard link targets by -c --transform.
+** Fix hard links recognition with -c --remove-files.
+** Fix restoring files from backup (debian bug #508199).
+** Correctly restore modes and permissions on existing directories.
+** The --remove-files option removes files only if they were
+succesfully stored in the archive.
+** Fix storing and listing of the volume labels in POSIX format.
+** Improve algorithm for splitting long file names (ustar
+format).
+** Fix possible memory overflow in the rmt client code (CVE-2010-0624).
+
\f
-version 1.15.92 - Sergey Poznyakoff, (CVS)
+version 1.22 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2009-03-05
+
+* Support for xz compression
+
+Tar uses xz for compression if one of the following conditions is met:
+
+ 1. The option --xz or -J (see below) is used.
+ 2. The xz binary is set as compressor using --use-compress-program option.
+ 3. The file name of the archive being created ends in `.xz' and
+ auto-compress option (-a) is used.
+
+Xz is used for decompression if one of the following conditions is met:
+
+ 1. The option --xz or -J is used.
+ 2. The xz binary is set as compressor using --use-compress-program option.
+ 3. The file is recognized as xz compressed stream data.
+
+* Short option -J reassigned as a short equivalent of --xz
+
+* New option -I
+
+The -I option is assigned as a short equivalent for
+--use-compress-program.
+
+* The --no-recursive option works in incremental mode.
+
+\f
+version 1.21 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2008-12-27
+
+* New short option -J
+
+A shortcut for --lzma.
+
+* New option --lzop
+
+* New option --no-auto-compress
+
+Cancels the effect of previous --auto-compress (-a) option.
+
+* New option --no-null
+
+Cancels the effect of previous --null option.
+
+* Compressed format recognition
+
+If tar is unable to determine archive compression format, it falls
+back to using archive suffix to determine it.
+
+* VCS support.
+
+Using --exclude-vcs handles also files used internally by Bazaar,
+Mercurial and Darcs.
+
+* Transformation scope flags
+
+Name transformation expressions understand additional flags that
+control type of archive members affected by them. The flags are:
+
+ - r
+ Apply transformation to regular archive members.
+
+ - s
+ Apply transformation to symbolic link targets.
+
+ - h
+ Apply transformation to hard link targets.
+
+Corresponding upper-case letters negate the meaning, so that
+`H' means ``do not apply transformation to hard link targets.''
+
+The scope flags are listed in the third part of an `s' expression,
+e.g.:
+
+ tar --transform 's|^|/usr/local/|S'
+
+Default is `rsh', which means that transformations are applied to
+both regular archive members and to the targets of symbolic and hard
+links. If several transform expressions are used, the default flags
+can be changed using `flags=' statement before the expressions, e.g.:
+
+ tar --transform 'flags=S;s|^|/usr/local/|S'
+
+* Bugfixes
+
+** The --null option disabled handling of tar options in list files. This
+is fixed.
+** Fixed record size autodetection. If the detected record size differs from
+the expected value (either default one, or the one set from the
+command line), tar always prints a warning if verbosity level is set
+to 1 or greater, i.e. if either -t or -v option is given.
+
+\f
+
+version 1.20 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2008-04-14
+
+* New option --auto-compress (-a)
+
+With --create, selects compression algorithm basing on the suffix
+of the archive file name.
+
+* New option --lzma
+
+Selects LZMA compression algorithm
+
+* New option --hard-dereference
+
+During archive creation, dereferences hard links and stores the files
+they refer to, instead of creating usual hard link members (type '1').
+
+* New option --checkpoint-action
+
+This action allows to specify an action to be executed upon hitting a
+checkpoint. Recognized actions are: dot, echo (the default),
+echo=string, ttyout=string, exec=cmdline, and sleep=value. Any number
+of `--checkpoint-action' options can be specified, the actions will be
+executed in order of their appearance in the command line. See
+chapter 3.8 "Checkpoints" for a complete description.
+
+* New options --no-check-device, --check-device.
+
+The `--no-check-device' option disables comparing device numbers during
+preparatory stage of an incremental dump. This allows to avoid
+creating full dumps if the device numbers change (e.g. when using an
+LVM snapshot).
+
+The `--check-device' option enables comparing device numbers. This is
+the default. This option is provided to undo the effect of the previous
+`--no-check-device' option, e.g. if it was set in TAR_OPTIONS
+environment variable.
+
+* The --transform option.
+
+Any number of `--transform' options can be given in the command line.
+The specified transformations will be applied in turn.
+
+The argument to `--transform' option can be a list of replace
+expressions, separated by a semicolon (as in `sed').
+
+Filename transformations are applied to symbolic link targets
+during both creation and extraction. Tar 1.19 used them only
+during extraction.
+
+For a detailed description, see chapter 6.7 "Modifying File and Member
+Names".
+
+* Info (end-of-volume) scripts
+
+The value of the blocking factor is made available to info and
+checkpoint scripts via environment variable TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR.
+
+* Incremental archives
+
+Improved (sped up) extracting from incremental archives.
+
+* Bugfixes.
+** Fix bug introduced in version 1.19: tar refused to update non-existing
+archives.
+
+\f
+version 1.19 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-10-10
+
+* New option --exclude-vcs
+
+Excludes directories and files, created by several widely used version
+control systems, e.g. "CVS/", ".svn/", etc.
+
+* --exclude-tag and --exclude-cache options
+
+The following options now work with incremental archives as well:
+
+ --exclude-caches
+ --exclude-caches-all
+ --exclude-tag
+ --exclude-tag-all
+ --exclude-tag-under
+
+* Fix handling of renamed files in listed incremental archives.
+
+Previous versions always stored absolute file names in rename
+records, even if -P was not used. This is fixed: rename records
+contain file names processed in accordance with the command line
+settings.
+
+* Fix --version output.
+
+* Recognition of broken archives.
+
+When supplied an archive smaller than 512 bytes in reading mode (-x,
+-t), the previous version of tar silently ignored it, exiting with
+code 0. It is fixed. Tar now issues the following diagnostic message:
+'This does not look like a tar archive', and exits with code 2.
+
+* Fix double-dot recognition in archive member names in case of duplicate '/.'.
+
+* Fix file padding in case of truncation of the input file to zero size.
+
+\f
+version 1.18 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-06-29
+
+* Licensed under the GPLv3
+
+* Fixed several bugs in the testsuite
+
+\f
+version 1.17 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-06-08
+
+* Fix archivation of sparse files in posix mode. Previous versions padded
+ sparse members with spurious zero blocks.
+
+* Fix operation of --verify --listed-incremental. Version 1.16.1 produced
+ a full dump when both options were given.
+
+* Fix --occurrence. In previous versions it continued scanning the archive
+ even though all requested members has already been extracted.
+
+* Scope of --transform and --strip-components options.
+
+In addition to affecting regular archive members, the --transform
+option affects hard and soft link targets and the --strip-components
+option affects hard link targets as well.
+
+* End-of-volume script can send the new volume name to tar by writing
+ it to the file descriptor stored in the environment variable `TAR_FD'.
+
+\f
+version 1.16.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-12-09
+
+* New option --exclude-tag allows to specify "exclusion tag files", i.e.
+ files whose presence in a directory means that the directory should not
+ be archived.
+
+* The --exclude-cache option excludes directories that contain the
+ CACHEDIR.TAG file from being archived. Previous versions excluded
+ directory contents only, while the directories themselves were
+ still added to the archive.
+
+* Support for reading ustar type 'N' header logical records has been removed.
+ This GNU extension was generated only by very old versions of GNU 'tar'.
+ Unfortunately its implementation had security holes; see
+ <http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclosure/2006-11/0344.html>.
+ We don't expect that any tar archives in practical use have type 'N'
+ records, but if you have one and you trust its contents, you can
+ decode it with GNU tar 1.16 or earlier.
+
+* Race conditions have been fixed that in some cases briefly allowed
+ files extracted by 'tar -x --same-owner' (or plain 'tar -x', when
+ running as root) to be accessed by users that they shouldn't have been.
+
+\f
+version 1.16 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-10-21
+
+* After creating an archive, tar exits with code 1 if some files were
+changed while being read. Previous versions exited with code 2 (fatal
+error), and only if some files were truncated while being archived.
* New option --mtime allows to set modification times for all archive
-members during creation.
+members during creation.
* Bug fixes
** Avoid running off file descriptors when using multiple -C options.
is now interpreted as a request to extract from the archive the file
named '*.c'.
-To treat member names as globbing patterns, use --wildcards option.
+To treat member names as globbing patterns, use --wildcards option.
If you wish tar to mimic the behavior of versions up to 1.15.90,
add --wildcards to the value of the environment variable TAR_OPTIONS.
The exact way in which tar interprets member names is controlled by the
following command line options:
- --wildcards use wildcards
+ --wildcards use wildcards
--anchored patterns match file name start
--ignore-case ignore case
--wildcards-match-slash wildcards match `/'
Each of these options has a '--no-' counterpart that disables its
effect (e.g. --no-wildcards).
-These options affect both the interpretation of member names from
+These options affect both the interpretation of member names from
command line and that of the exclusion patterns (given with --exclude
and --exclude-from options). The defaults are:
** Short option -l is now an alias of --check-links option, which complies
with UNIX98. This ends the transition period started with version 1.14.
-
+
* New features
** New option --transform allows to transform file names before storing them
versions it worked only with --extract.
** New option --show-transformed-names enables display of transformed file
-or archive. It generalizes --show-stored-names option, introduced in
-1.15.90. In particular, when creating an archive in verbose mode, it lists
+or archive. It generalizes --show-stored-names option, introduced in
+1.15.90. In particular, when creating an archive in verbose mode, it lists
member names as stored in the archive, i.e., with any eventual prefixes
removed and file name transformations applied. The option is useful,
for example, while comparing `tar cv' and `tar tv' outputs.
-** New incremental snapshot file format keeps information about file names
+** New incremental snapshot file format keeps information about file names
as well as that about directories.
** The --checkpoint option takes an optional argument specifying the number
of records between the two successive checkpoints. Optional dot
starting the argument intructs tar to print dots instead of textual
-checkpoints.
+checkpoints.
** The --totals option can be used with any tar operation (previous versions
understood it only with --create). If an argument to this option is
was not processed correctly.
** Previous version created invalid archives when files shrink
during reading.
-** Compare mode (tar d) hanged when trying to compare file contents.
+** Compare mode (tar d) hung when trying to compare file contents.
** Previous versions in certain cases failed to restore directory
modification times.
** When creating an archive, do not attempt to store files whose
\f
Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003,
-2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This file is part of GNU tar.
GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
-the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
+the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
any later version.
GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
Local variables:
mode: outline
paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
+eval: (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'time-stamp)
+time-stamp-start: "changes. "
+time-stamp-format: "%:y-%02m-%02d"
+time-stamp-end: "\n"
end:
projects / chaz / tar / blobdiff