-GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2009-03-05
+GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2016-05-16
Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
+\f
+version 1.29 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2016-05-16
+
+* New options: --verbatim-files-from, --no-verbatim-files-from
+
+The --verbatim-files-from option instructs tar to treat each line read
+from a file list as a file name, even if it starts with a dash.
+
+File lists are supplied with the --files-from (-T) option. By
+default, each line read from a file list is first stripped off the
+leading and trailing whitespace and, if the result begins with a dash,
+it is treated as tar command line option.
+
+Use the --verbatim-files-from option to disable this special handling.
+This facilitates the use of tar with file lists created automatically
+(e.g. by find(1) command).
+
+This option affects all --files-from options that occur after it in
+the command line. Its effect is reverted by the
+--no-verbatim-files-from option.
+
+* --null option reads file names verbatim
+
+The --null option implies --verbatim-files-from. I.e. each line
+read from null-delimited file lists is treated as a file name.
+
+This restores the documented behavior, which was broken in version
+1.27.
+
+* New options: --owner-map=FILE and --group-map=FILE
+
+These two options provide fine-grained control over what user/group
+names (or IDs) should be mapped when adding files to archive.
+
+For both options, FILE is a plain text file with user or group
+mappings. Empty lines are ignored. Comments are introduced with
+# sign (unless quoted) and extend to the end of the corresponding
+line. Each non-empty line defines translation for a single UID (GID).
+It must consist of two fields, delimited by any amount of whitespace:
+
+ OLDNAME NEWNAME[:NEWID]
+
+OLDNAME is either a valid user (group) name or a ID prefixed with +. Unless
+NEWID is supplied, NEWNAME must also be either a valid name or a
++ID. Otherwise, both NEWNAME and NEWID need not be listed in the
+system user database.
+
+* New option --clamp-mtime
+
+The new --clamp-mtime option changes the behavior of --mtime to only
+use the time specified if the file mtime is newer than the given time.
+The --clamp-mtime option can only be used together with --mtime.
+
+Typical use case is to make builds reproducible: to loose less
+information, it's better to keep the original date of an archive,
+except for files modified during the build process. In that case, using
+reference (and thus reproducible) timestamps for the latter is good
+enough.
+
+See <https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds> for more information.
+
+* Deprecated --preserve option removed
+
+* Sparse file detection
+
+Tar now uses SEEK_DATA/SEEK_HOLE on systems that support it. This
+allows for considerable speed-up in sparse-file detection.
+
+New option --hole-detection is provided, that allows the user to
+select the algorithm used for hole detection. Available arguments
+are:
+
+ --hole-detection=seek
+ Use lseek(2) SEEK_DATA and SEEK_HOLE "whence" parameters.
+
+ --hole-detection=raw
+ Scan entire file before storing it to determine where holes
+ are located.
+
+The default is to use "seek" whenever possible, and fall back to
+"raw" otherwise.
+
+\f
+version 1.28, 2014-07-28
+
+* New checkpoint action: totals
+
+The --checkpoint-action=totals option instructs tar to output the
+total number of bytes transferred at each checkpoint.
+
+* Extended checkpoint format specification.
+
+New conversion specifiers are implemented. Some of them take
+optional arguments, supplied in curly braces between the percent
+sign and the specifier letter.
+
+ %d - Number of seconds since tar started.
+ %{r,w,d}T - I/O totals; optional arguments supply prefixes
+ to be used before number of bytes read, written and
+ deleted, correspondingly.
+ %{FMT}t - Current local time using FMT as strftime(3) format.
+ If {FMT} is omitted, use %c.
+ %{N}* - Pad output with spaces to the Nth column, or to the
+ current screen width, if {N} is not given.
+ %c - A shortcut for "%{%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}t: %ds, %{read,wrote}T%*\r"
+
+* New option --one-top-level
+
+The option --one-top-level tells tar to extract all files into a
+subdirectory named by the base name of the archive (minus standard
+compression suffixes recognizable by --auto-compress). When used with
+an argument, as in --one-top-level=DIR, the files are extracted into the
+supplied DIRectory. This ensures that no archive members are
+extracted outside of the specified directory, even if the archive is
+crafted so as to put them elsewhere.
+
+* New option --sort
+
+The --sort=ORDER option instructs tar to sort directory entries
+according to ORDER. It takes effect when creating archives.
+Available ORDERs are: none (the default), name and inode. The
+latter may be absent, if the underlying system does not provide
+the necessary information.
+
+Using --sort=name ensures the member ordering in the created archive
+is uniform and reproducible. Using --sort=inode reduces the number
+of disk seeks made when creating the archive and thus can considerably
+speed up archivation.
+
+* New exclusion options
+
+ --exclude-ignore=FILE Before dumping a directory check if it
+ contains FILE, and if so read exclude
+ patterns for this directory from FILE.
+ --exclude-ignore-recursive=FILE
+ Same as above, but the exclusion patterns
+ read from FILE remain in effect for any
+ subdirectory, recursively.
+ --exclude-vcs-ignores Read exclude tags from VCS ignore files,
+ where such files exist. Supported VCS's
+ are: CVS, Git, Bazaar, Mercurial.
+
+
+* Tar refuses to read input from and write output to a tty device.
+
+* Manpages
+
+This release includes official tar(1) and rmt(8) manpages.
+Distribution maintainers are kindly asked to use these instead of the
+home-made pages they have been providing so far.
+
+\f
+version 1.27.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2013-11-17
+
+* Bug fixes
+
+* Fix unquoting of file names obtained via the -T option.
+
+* Fix GNU long link header timestamp (backward compatibility).
+
+* Fix extracting sparse members from star archives.
+
+\f
+version 1.27 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2013-10-05
+
+* Bug fixes
+
+** Sparse files with large data
+
+When creating a PAX-format archive, tar no longer arbitrarily restricts
+the size of the representation of a sparse file to be less than 8 GiB.
+
+* Quoting
+
+In the default C locale, diagnostics and output of 'tar' have been
+adjusted to quote 'like this' (with apostrophes) instead of `like this'
+(with an accent grave character and an apostrophe). This tracks
+recent changes to the GNU coding standards.
+
+* --owner and --group names and numbers
+
+The --owner and --group options now accept operands of the form
+NAME:NUM, so that you can specify both symbolic name and numeric ID
+for owner and group. In these options, NAME no longer needs to be
+present in the current host's user and group databases.
+
+* The --keep-old-files and --skip-old-files options.
+
+This release restores the traditional functionality of the
+--keep-old-files. This option causes tar to avoid replacing
+existing files while extracting and to treat such files as errors.
+Tar will emit a prominent error message upon encountering such files
+and will exit with code 2 when finished extracting the archive.
+
+A new option --skip-old-files is introduced, which acts exactly as
+--keep-old-files, except that it does not treat existing files as
+errors. Instead it just silently skips them. An additional level of
+verbosity can be obtained by using the option --warning=existing-file
+together with this option.
+
+* Support for POSIX ACLs, extended attributes and SELinux context.
+
+Starting with this version tar is able to store, extract and list
+extended file attributes, POSIX.1e ACLs and SELinux context. This is
+controlled by the command line options --xattrs, --acls and --selinux,
+correspondingly. Each of these options has a `--no-' counterpart
+(e.g. --no-xattrs), which disables the corresponding feature.
+Additionally, the options --xattrs-include and --xattrs-exclude allow
+you to selectively control for which files to store (or extract) the
+extended attributes.
+
+* Passing command line arguments to external commands.
+
+Any option taking a command name as its argument now accepts a full
+command line as well. Thus, it is now possible to pass additional
+arguments to invoked programs. The affected options are:
+
+ --checkpoint-action=exec
+ -I, --use-compress-program
+ -F, --info-script
+ --to-command
+
+Furthermore, if any additional information is supplied to such a
+command via environment variables, these variables can now be used in
+the command line itself. Care should be taken to escape them, to
+prevent from being expanded too early, for example:
+
+ tar -x -f a.tar --info-script='changevol $TAR_ARCHIVE $TAR_VOLUME'
+
+* New configure option --enable-gcc-warnings, intended for debugging.
+
+* New warning control option --warning=[no-]record-size
+
+On extraction, this option controls whether to display actual record
+size, if it differs from the default.
+
+* New command line option --keep-directory-symlink
+
+By default, if trying to extract a directory from the archive,
+tar discovers that the corresponding file name already exists and is a
+symbolic link, it first unlinks the entry, and then extracts the directory.
+
+This option disables this behavior and instructs tar to follow
+symlinks to directories when extracting from the archive.
+
+It is mainly intended to provide compatibility with the Slackware
+installation scripts.
+
+\f
+version 1.26 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2011-03-12
+
+* Bugfixes
+
+** Fix the --verify option, which broke in version 1.24.
+
+** Fix storing long sparse file names in PAX archives.
+
+** Fix correctness of --atime-preserve=replace
+
+tar --atime-preserve=replace no longer tries to restore atime of
+zero-sized files.
+
+** Work around POSIX incompatibilities on FreeBSD, NetBSD and Tru64
+
+** Fix bug with --one-file-system --listed-incremental
+
+When invoked with these two options, tar 1.25 would add only the
+top-level directory to the archive, but not its contents.
+
+\f
+version 1.25 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-11-07
+
+* Fix extraction of empty directories with the -C option in effect.
+* Fix extraction of device nodes.
+* Make sure name matching occurs before eventual name transformation.
+
+Tar 1.24 changed the ordering of name matching and name transformation
+so that the former saw already transformed file names. This made it
+impossible to match file names in certain cases. It is fixed now.
+
+* Fix the behavior of tar -x --overwrite on hosts lacking O_NOFOLLOW.
+
+* Improve the testsuite.
+
+* Alternative decompression programs.
+
+If extraction from a compressed archive fails because the corresponding
+compression program is not installed and the following two conditions
+are met, tar retries extraction using an alternative decompressor:
+
+ 1. Another compression program supported by tar is able to handle this
+ compression format.
+ 2. The compression program was not explicitly requested in the command
+ line by the use of such options as -z, -j, etc.
+
+For example, if 'compress' is not available, tar will try 'gzip'.
+
+\f
+version 1.24 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-10-24
+
+* 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 than before, but it adjusts to system limits on
+the number of file descriptors. Tar also takes more care when
+a file system is modified while tar is extracting from an archive.
+
+The new checks are implemented via the openat and related 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.
+
+** Symbolic link attributes
+
+When extracting symbolic links, tar now restores attributes such as
+last-modified time and link permissions, if the operating system
+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
+"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-option='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-option='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 1.22 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2009-03-05
* Support for xz compression
-Tar uses xz for compression if one of the following conditions is met:
+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
+ 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:
+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.
- s
Apply transformation to symbolic link targets.
- - h
+ - 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.''
+'H' means "do not apply transformation to hard link targets".
-The scope flags are listed in the third part of an `s' expression,
+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
+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.:
+can be changed using 'flags=' statement before the expressions, e.g.:
tar --transform 'flags=S;s|^|/usr/local/|S'
** The --null option disabled handling of tar options in list files. This
is fixed.
-** Fixed record size autodetection. If detected record size differs from
-the expected value (either default, or set on 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.
+** 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
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
+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
+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 '--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
+'--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.
+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').
+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".
+Names".
* Info (end-of-volume) scripts
The following options now work with incremental archives as well:
- --exclude-caches
- --exclude-caches-all
+ --exclude-caches
+ --exclude-caches-all
--exclude-tag
--exclude-tag-all
--exclude-tag-under
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:
+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 '/.'.
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'.
+ it to the file descriptor stored in the environment variable TAR_FD.
\f
version 1.16.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-12-09
--wildcards use wildcards
--anchored patterns match file name start
--ignore-case ignore case
- --wildcards-match-slash wildcards match `/'
+ --wildcards-match-slash wildcards match '/'
Each of these options has a '--no-' counterpart that disables its
effect (e.g. --no-wildcards).
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.
+for example, while comparing 'tar cv' and 'tar tv' outputs.
** New incremental snapshot file format keeps information about file names
as well as that about directories.
* New features
** Any number of -T (--files-from) options may be used in the command line.
-The file specified with -T may include any valid `tar' options,
+The file specified with -T may include any valid 'tar' options,
including another -T option.
Compatibility note: older versions of tar would only recognize -C
as an option name within the file list file. Now any file whose name
automatically. It is no longer necessary to give the --null option.
** New option --no-unquote disables the unquoting of input file names.
-This is useful for processing output from `find dir -print0'.
+This is useful for processing output from 'find dir -print0'.
An orthogonal option --unquote is provided as well.
** New option --test-label tests the archive volume label.
** New option --show-stored-names. When creating an archive in verbose mode,
it lists member names as stored in the archive, i.e., with any eventual
prefixes removed. The option is useful, for example, while comparing
-`tar cv' and `tar tv' outputs.
+'tar cv' and 'tar tv' outputs.
** New option --to-command pipes the contents of archive members to the
specified command.
* Compressed archives are recognised automatically, it is no longer
necessary to specify -Z, -z, or -j options to read them. Thus, you can
-now run `tar tf archive.tar.gz'.
+now run 'tar tf archive.tar.gz'.
* When restoring incremental dumps, --one-file-system option
prevents directory hierarchies residing on different devices
* Restore script starts restoring only if it is given --all (-a) option,
or some patterns. This is to prevent accidental restores.
-* `tar --verify' prints a warning if during archive creation some of
+* 'tar --verify' prints a warning if during archive creation some of
the file names had their prefixes stripped off.
* New option --exclude-caches instructs tar to exclude cache directories
http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/spec.html
* New configure option --with-rmt allows to specify full path name to
-the `rmt' utility. This supersedes DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND variable
+the 'rmt' utility. This supersedes DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND variable
introduced in version 1.14
* New configure variable DEFAULT_RMT_DIR allows to specify the directory
-where to install `rmt' utility. This is necessary since modifying
+where to install 'rmt' utility. This is necessary since modifying
--libexecdir as was suggested for version 1.14 produced a side effect: it
also modified installation prefix for backup scripts (if
--enable-backup-scripts was given).
the subcommands --delete, --diff, --extract or --list when a list of
files is given either on the command line or via -T option. This
option instructs tar to process only the Nth occurrence of each named
- file. N defaults to 1, so `tar -x -f archive --occurrence filename'
- extracts the first occurrence of `filename' from `archive'
+ file. N defaults to 1, so 'tar -x -f archive --occurrence filename'
+ extracts the first occurrence of 'filename' from 'archive'
and terminates without scanning to the end of the archive.
* New option --pax-option allows to control the handling of POSIX
- keywords in `pax' extended headers. It is equivalent to `pax'
+ keywords in 'pax' extended headers. It is equivalent to 'pax'
-o option.
* --incremental and --listed-incremental options work correctly on
\f
version 1.13.18 - Paul Eggert, 2000-10-29
-* Some security problems have been fixed. `tar -x' now modifies only
+* Some security problems have been fixed. 'tar -x' now modifies only
files under the working directory, unless you also specify an unsafe
option like --absolute-names or --overwrite.
* This version of tar works best with GNU gzip test version 1.3 or later.
Please see <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>.
-* `tar --delete -f -' now works again.
+* 'tar --delete -f -' now works again.
\f
version 1.13.17 - Paul Eggert, 2000-01-07.
-* `tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
+* 'tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
* Diagnostic messages have been made more regular and consistent.
\f
The new --overwrite option enables the old default behavior.
For regular files, tar implements this change by using the O_EXCL
- option of `open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
+ option of 'open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
removes the file and tries again. This is similar to the behavior of
the --unlink-first option, but it is faster in the common case of
extracting a new directory.
-* By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of `..'
+* By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of '..'
when extracting, and warns about such file names when creating an archive.
To enable the old behavior, use the -P or --absolute-names option.
version 1.13.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-10-11.
* Invalid headers in tar files now elicit errors, not just warnings.
-* `tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
-* If you specify an invalid date, `tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
-* `configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
+* 'tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
+* If you specify an invalid date, 'tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
+* 'configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
\f
version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
-* `tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
+* 'tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
* New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
* --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
-* `tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
+* 'tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
format. This affects archive members with negative or huge time
stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger. The new tar
behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
and which rejects large files.
-* On 32-bit hosts, `tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
+* On 32-bit hosts, 'tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
2**32). This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
- time_t hosts, so `tar' issues a warning.
+ time_t hosts, so 'tar' issues a warning.
-* `tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
+* 'tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
that an archive contains garbage at the end. It attempts to extract
as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
* -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
if no explicit operands were given.
-* The `--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
+* The '--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
- even if they begin with `-'.
+ even if they begin with '-'.
* For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
- abbreviations like `EST' has been updated to match current practice.
+ abbreviations like 'EST' has been updated to match current practice.
Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
not in tar's hardwired table. Remember, though, that you should use
- numeric UTC offsets like `-0500' instead of abbreviations like
- `EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
+ numeric UTC offsets like '-0500' instead of abbreviations like
+ 'EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
\f
version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
-* `tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
+* 'tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format. [This
change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
\f
version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
-* `tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
- POSIX.1 requires this, and some other `tar' implementations check for it.
+* 'tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
+ POSIX.1 requires this, and some other 'tar' implementations check for it.
-* `tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
+* 'tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
as a zero block.
-* `tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
+* 'tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
numeric header field.
\f
version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
-* For compatibility with traditional `tar', intermediate directories
+* For compatibility with traditional 'tar', intermediate directories
created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
the original file or directory.
* --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
-* When creating an archive, leading `./' is no longer stripped,
+* When creating an archive, leading './' is no longer stripped,
to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
* --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
* Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
* New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
* Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
-* Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in `tar cf FILE').
+* Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in 'tar cf FILE').
* Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
Extraction
* Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
-* Long options now use `--'; use of `+' is deprecated and support
+* Long options now use '--'; use of '+' is deprecated and support
for it will eventually be removed.
* New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
around to the beginning.
* Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
-`:' is interpreted as remote. If new option --force-local is given,
-then even archive files with a `:' are considered local.
+':' is interpreted as remote. If new option --force-local is given,
+then even archive files with a ':' are considered local.
* New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
their original values after dumping the file.
\f
-Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003,
-2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+Copyright 1994-2001, 2003-2010, 2013-2016 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 3, or (at your option)
-any later version.
+the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
+(at your option) any later version.
GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
-the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
-Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
+along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
\f
Local variables:
mode: outline
projects / debian / tar / blobdiff