1 GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2014-01-27
2 Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
7 * New checkpoint action: totals
9 The --checkpoint-action=totals option instructs tar to output the
10 total number of bytes transferred at each checkpoint.
12 * Extended checkpoint format specification.
14 New conversion specifiers are implemented. Some of them take
15 optional arguments, supplied in curly braces between the percent
16 sign and the specifier letter.
18 %d - output number of seconds since tar started
19 %{r,w,d}T - output I/O totals; optional arguments supply prefixes
20 to be used before number of bytes read, written and
21 deleted, correspondingly.
22 %{FMT}t - output current local time using FMT as strftime(3) format
23 If {FMT} is omitted, use %c
24 %{N}* - pad output with spaces to the Nth column, or to the
25 current screen width, if {N} is not given.
26 %c - a shortcut for "%{%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}t: %ds, %{read,wrote}T%*\r"
30 This release includes official tar(1) and rmt(8) manpages.
31 Distribution maintainers are kindly asked to use these instead of the
32 home-made pages they provided so far.
35 version 1.27.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2013-11-17
39 * Fix unquoting of file names obtained via the -T option.
41 * Fix GNU long link header timestamp (backward compatibility).
43 * Fix extracting sparse members from star archives.
45 * The --one-top-level option.
47 This new command line option tells tar that the working directory
48 (or the one passed to -C) should not be populated with more than one
49 name directly under it. Instead, a newly created subdirectory is
50 used whose name is equal to the archive name without the extension.
51 For example, foo.tar.gz would be extracted to foo.
54 version 1.27 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2013-10-05
58 ** Sparse files with large data
60 When creating a PAX-format archive, tar no longer arbitrarily restricts
61 the size of the representation of a sparse file to be less than 8 GiB.
65 In the default C locale, diagnostics and output of 'tar' have been
66 adjusted to quote 'like this' (with apostrophes) instead of `like this'
67 (with an accent grave character and an apostrophe). This tracks
68 recent changes to the GNU coding standards.
70 * --owner and --group names and numbers
72 The --owner and --group options now accept operands of the form
73 NAME:NUM, so that you can specify both symbolic name and numeric ID
74 for owner and group. In these options, NAME no longer needs to be
75 present in the current host's user and group databases.
77 * The --keep-old-files and --skip-old-files options.
79 This release restores the traditional functionality of the
80 --keep-old-files. This option causes tar to avoid replacing
81 existing files while extracting and to treat such files as errors.
82 Tar will emit a prominent error message upon encountering such files
83 and will exit with code 2 when finished extracting the archive.
85 A new option --skip-old-files is introduced, which acts exactly as
86 --keep-old-files, except that it does not treat existing files as
87 errors. Instead it just silently skips them. An additional level of
88 verbosity can be obtained by using the option --warning=existing-file
89 together with this option.
91 * Support for POSIX ACLs, extended attributes and SELinux context.
93 Starting with this version tar is able to store, extract and list
94 extended file attributes, POSIX.1e ACLs and SELinux context. This is
95 controlled by the command line options --xattrs, --acls and --selinux,
96 correspondingly. Each of these options has a `--no-' counterpart
97 (e.g. --no-xattrs), which disables the corresponding feature.
98 Additionally, the options --xattrs-include and --xattrs-exclude allow
99 you to selectively control for which files to store (or extract) the
102 * Passing command line arguments to external commands.
104 Any option taking a command name as its argument now accepts a full
105 command line as well. Thus, it is now possible to pass additional
106 arguments to invoked programs. The affected options are:
108 --checkpoint-action=exec
109 -I, --use-compress-program
113 Furthermore, if any additional information is supplied to such a
114 command via environment variables, these variables can now be used in
115 the command line itself. Care should be taken to escape them, to
116 prevent from being expanded too early, for example:
118 tar -x -f a.tar --info-script='changevol $TAR_ARCHIVE $TAR_VOLUME'
120 * New configure option --enable-gcc-warnings, intended for debugging.
122 * New warning control option --warning=[no-]record-size
124 On extraction, this option controls whether to display actual record
125 size, if it differs from the default.
127 * New command line option --keep-directory-symlink
129 By default, if trying to extract a directory from the archive,
130 tar discovers that the corresponding file name already exists and is a
131 symbolic link, it first unlinks the entry, and then extracts the directory.
133 This option disables this behavior and instructs tar to follow
134 symlinks to directories when extracting from the archive.
136 It is mainly intended to provide compatibility with the Slackware
137 installation scripts.
140 version 1.26 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2011-03-12
144 ** Fix the --verify option, which broke in version 1.24.
146 ** Fix storing long sparse file names in PAX archives.
148 ** Fix correctness of --atime-preserve=replace
150 tar --atime-preserve=replace no longer tries to restore atime of
153 ** Work around POSIX incompatibilities on FreeBSD, NetBSD and Tru64
155 ** Fix bug with --one-file-system --listed-incremental
157 When invoked with these two options, tar 1.25 would add only the
158 top-level directory to the archive, but not its contents.
161 version 1.25 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-11-07
163 * Fix extraction of empty directories with the -C option in effect.
164 * Fix extraction of device nodes.
165 * Make sure name matching occurs before eventual name transformation.
167 Tar 1.24 changed the ordering of name matching and name transformation
168 so that the former saw already transformed file names. This made it
169 impossible to match file names in certain cases. It is fixed now.
171 * Fix the behavior of tar -x --overwrite on hosts lacking O_NOFOLLOW.
173 * Improve the testsuite.
175 * Alternative decompression programs.
177 If extraction from a compressed archive fails because the corresponding
178 compression program is not installed and the following two conditions
179 are met, tar retries extraction using an alternative decompressor:
181 1. Another compression program supported by tar is able to handle this
183 2. The compression program was not explicitly requested in the command
184 line by the use of such options as -z, -j, etc.
186 For example, if 'compress' is not available, tar will try 'gzip'.
189 version 1.24 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-10-24
191 * The --full-time option.
193 New command line option '--full-time' instructs tar to output file
194 time stamps to the full resolution.
198 ** More reliable directory traversal when creating archives
200 Tar now checks for inconsistencies caused when a file system is
201 modified while tar is creating an archive. In the new approach, tar
202 maintains a cache of file descriptors to directories, so it uses more
203 file descriptors than before, but it adjusts to system limits on
204 the number of file descriptors. Tar also takes more care when
205 a file system is modified while tar is extracting from an archive.
207 The new checks are implemented via the openat and related calls
208 standardized by POSIX.1-2008. On an older system where these calls do
209 not exist or do not return useful results, tar emulates the calls at
210 some cost in efficiency and reliability.
212 ** Symbolic link attributes
214 When extracting symbolic links, tar now restores attributes such as
215 last-modified time and link permissions, if the operating system
216 supports this. For example, recent versions of the Linux kernel
217 support setting times on symlinks, and some BSD kernels also support
220 ** --dereference consistency
222 The --dereference (-h) option now applies to files that are copied
223 into or out of archives, independently of other options. For example,
224 if F is a symbolic link and archive.tar contains a regular-file member
225 also named F, "tar --overwrite -x -f archive.tar F" now overwrites F
226 itself, rather than the file that F points to. (To overwrite the file
227 that F points to, add the --dereference (-h) option.) Formerly,
228 --dereference was intended to apply only when using the -c option, but
229 the implementation was not consistent.
231 Also, the --dereference option no longer affects accesses to other
232 files, such as archives and time stamp files. Symbolic links to these
233 files are always followed. Previously, the links were usually but not
236 ** Spurious error diagnostics on broken pipe.
238 When receiving SIGPIPE, tar would exit with error status and
239 "write error" diagnostics. In particular, this occurred if
240 invoked as in the example below:
242 tar tf archive.tar | head -n 1
246 'tar --remove-files' failed to remove a directory which contained
247 symlinks to another files within that directory.
249 ** --test-label behavior
251 In case of a mismatch, 'tar --test-label LABEL' exits with code 1,
252 not 2 as it did in previous versions.
254 The '--verbose' option used with '--test-label' provides additional
257 Several volume labels may be specified in a command line, e.g.:
259 tar --test-label -f archive 'My volume' 'New volume' 'Test volume'
261 In this case, tar exits with code 0 if any one of the arguments
262 matches the actual volume label.
264 ** --label used with --update
266 The '--label' option can be used with '--update' to prevent accidental
267 update of an archive:
269 tar -rf archive --label 'My volume' .
271 This did not work in previous versions, in spite of what the docs said.
273 ** --record-size and --tape-length (-L) options
275 Usual size suffixes are allowed for these options. For example,
276 -L10k stands for a 10 kilobyte tape length.
278 ** Fix dead loop on extracting existing symlinks with the -k option.
281 version 1.23 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2010-03-10
283 * Record size autodetection
285 When listing or extracting archives, the actual record size is
286 reported only if the archive is read from a device (as opposed
287 to regular files and pipes).
291 When a read-only operation (e.g. --list or --extract) is requested
292 on a regular file, tar attemtps to speed up accesses by using lseek.
294 * New command line option '--warning'
296 The '--warning' command line option allows to suppress or enable
297 particular warning messages during 'tar' run. It takes a single
298 argument (a 'keyword'), identifying the class of warning messages
299 to affect. If the argument is prefixed with 'no-', such warning
300 messages are suppressed. For example,
302 tar --warning=no-alone-zero-block -x -f archive
304 suppresses the output of "A lone zero block" diagnostics, which is
305 normally issued if 'archive' ends with a single block of zeros.
307 See Tar Manual, section 3.9 "Controlling Warning Messages", for a
310 * New command line option '--level'
312 The '--level=N' option sets the incremental dump level N. It
313 is valid when used in conjunction with the -c and --listed-incremental
314 options. So far the only meaningful value for N is 0. The
315 '--level=0' option forces creating the level 0 dump, by truncating
316 the snapshot file if it exists.
318 * Files removed during incremental dumps
320 If a file or directory is removed while incremental dump is
321 in progress, tar exact actions depend on whether this file
322 was explicitly listed in the command line, or was found
323 during file system scan.
325 If the file was explicitly listed in the command line, tar
326 issues error message and exits with the code 2, meaning
329 Otherwise, if the file was found during the file system scan,
330 tar issues a warning, saying "File removed before we read it",
331 and sets exit code to 1, which means "some files differ".
332 If the --warning=no-file-removed option is given, no warning
333 is issued and exit code remains 0.
335 * Modification times of PAX extended headers.
337 Modification times in ustar header blocks of extended headers
338 are set to mtimes of the corresponding archive members. This
339 can be overridden by the
341 --pax-opion='exthdr.mtime=STRING'
343 command line option. The STRING is either number of seconds since
344 the Epoch or a "Time reference" (see below).
346 Modification times in ustar header blocks of global extended
347 headers are set to the time when tar was invoked.
349 This can be overridden by the
351 --pax-opion='globexthdr.mtime=STRING'
353 command line option. The STRING is either number of seconds since
354 the Epoch or a "Time reference" (see below).
356 * Time references in --pax-option argument.
358 Any value from the --pax-option argument that is enclosed in a pair
359 of curly braces represents a time reference. The string between the
360 braces is understood either as a textual time representation, as described in
361 chapter 7, "Date input formats", of the Tar manual, or as a name of
362 an existing file, starting with '/' or '.'. In the latter
363 case, it is replaced with the modification time of that file.
365 * Environment of --to-command script.
367 The environment passed to the --to-command script is extended with
368 the following variables:
370 TAR_VERSION GNU tar version number
371 TAR_ARCHIVE The name of the archive
372 TAR_VOLUME Ordinal number of the volume
373 TAR_FORMAT Format of the archive
374 TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR Current blocking factor
377 ** Fix handling of hard link targets by -c --transform.
378 ** Fix hard links recognition with -c --remove-files.
379 ** Fix restoring files from backup (debian bug #508199).
380 ** Correctly restore modes and permissions on existing directories.
381 ** The --remove-files option removes files only if they were
382 succesfully stored in the archive.
383 ** Fix storing and listing of the volume labels in POSIX format.
384 ** Improve algorithm for splitting long file names (ustar
386 ** Fix possible memory overflow in the rmt client code (CVE-2010-0624).
389 version 1.22 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2009-03-05
391 * Support for xz compression
393 Tar uses xz for compression if one of the following conditions is met:
395 1. The option --xz or -J (see below) is used.
396 2. The xz binary is set as compressor using --use-compress-program option.
397 3. The file name of the archive being created ends in '.xz' and
398 auto-compress option (-a) is used.
400 Xz is used for decompression if one of the following conditions is met:
402 1. The option --xz or -J is used.
403 2. The xz binary is set as compressor using --use-compress-program option.
404 3. The file is recognized as xz compressed stream data.
406 * Short option -J reassigned as a short equivalent of --xz
410 The -I option is assigned as a short equivalent for
411 --use-compress-program.
413 * The --no-recursive option works in incremental mode.
416 version 1.21 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2008-12-27
418 * New short option -J
420 A shortcut for --lzma.
424 * New option --no-auto-compress
426 Cancels the effect of previous --auto-compress (-a) option.
428 * New option --no-null
430 Cancels the effect of previous --null option.
432 * Compressed format recognition
434 If tar is unable to determine archive compression format, it falls
435 back to using archive suffix to determine it.
439 Using --exclude-vcs handles also files used internally by Bazaar,
442 * Transformation scope flags
444 Name transformation expressions understand additional flags that
445 control type of archive members affected by them. The flags are:
448 Apply transformation to regular archive members.
451 Apply transformation to symbolic link targets.
454 Apply transformation to hard link targets.
456 Corresponding upper-case letters negate the meaning, so that
457 'H' means "do not apply transformation to hard link targets".
459 The scope flags are listed in the third part of an 's' expression,
462 tar --transform 's|^|/usr/local/|S'
464 Default is 'rsh', which means that transformations are applied to
465 both regular archive members and to the targets of symbolic and hard
466 links. If several transform expressions are used, the default flags
467 can be changed using 'flags=' statement before the expressions, e.g.:
469 tar --transform 'flags=S;s|^|/usr/local/|S'
473 ** The --null option disabled handling of tar options in list files. This
475 ** Fixed record size autodetection. If the detected record size differs from
476 the expected value (either default one, or the one set from the
477 command line), tar always prints a warning if verbosity level is set
478 to 1 or greater, i.e. if either -t or -v option is given.
482 version 1.20 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2008-04-14
484 * New option --auto-compress (-a)
486 With --create, selects compression algorithm basing on the suffix
487 of the archive file name.
491 Selects LZMA compression algorithm
493 * New option --hard-dereference
495 During archive creation, dereferences hard links and stores the files
496 they refer to, instead of creating usual hard link members (type '1').
498 * New option --checkpoint-action
500 This action allows to specify an action to be executed upon hitting a
501 checkpoint. Recognized actions are: dot, echo (the default),
502 echo=string, ttyout=string, exec=cmdline, and sleep=value. Any number
503 of '--checkpoint-action' options can be specified, the actions will be
504 executed in order of their appearance in the command line. See
505 chapter 3.8 "Checkpoints" for a complete description.
507 * New options --no-check-device, --check-device.
509 The '--no-check-device' option disables comparing device numbers during
510 preparatory stage of an incremental dump. This allows to avoid
511 creating full dumps if the device numbers change (e.g. when using an
514 The '--check-device' option enables comparing device numbers. This is
515 the default. This option is provided to undo the effect of the previous
516 '--no-check-device' option, e.g. if it was set in TAR_OPTIONS
517 environment variable.
519 * The --transform option.
521 Any number of '--transform' options can be given in the command line.
522 The specified transformations will be applied in turn.
524 The argument to '--transform' option can be a list of replace
525 expressions, separated by a semicolon (as in 'sed').
527 Filename transformations are applied to symbolic link targets
528 during both creation and extraction. Tar 1.19 used them only
531 For a detailed description, see chapter 6.7 "Modifying File and Member
534 * Info (end-of-volume) scripts
536 The value of the blocking factor is made available to info and
537 checkpoint scripts via environment variable TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR.
539 * Incremental archives
541 Improved (sped up) extracting from incremental archives.
544 ** Fix bug introduced in version 1.19: tar refused to update non-existing
548 version 1.19 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-10-10
550 * New option --exclude-vcs
552 Excludes directories and files, created by several widely used version
553 control systems, e.g. "CVS/", ".svn/", etc.
555 * --exclude-tag and --exclude-cache options
557 The following options now work with incremental archives as well:
565 * Fix handling of renamed files in listed incremental archives.
567 Previous versions always stored absolute file names in rename
568 records, even if -P was not used. This is fixed: rename records
569 contain file names processed in accordance with the command line
572 * Fix --version output.
574 * Recognition of broken archives.
576 When supplied an archive smaller than 512 bytes in reading mode (-x,
577 -t), the previous version of tar silently ignored it, exiting with
578 code 0. It is fixed. Tar now issues the following diagnostic message:
579 'This does not look like a tar archive', and exits with code 2.
581 * Fix double-dot recognition in archive member names in case of duplicate '/.'.
583 * Fix file padding in case of truncation of the input file to zero size.
586 version 1.18 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-06-29
588 * Licensed under the GPLv3
590 * Fixed several bugs in the testsuite
593 version 1.17 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2007-06-08
595 * Fix archivation of sparse files in posix mode. Previous versions padded
596 sparse members with spurious zero blocks.
598 * Fix operation of --verify --listed-incremental. Version 1.16.1 produced
599 a full dump when both options were given.
601 * Fix --occurrence. In previous versions it continued scanning the archive
602 even though all requested members has already been extracted.
604 * Scope of --transform and --strip-components options.
606 In addition to affecting regular archive members, the --transform
607 option affects hard and soft link targets and the --strip-components
608 option affects hard link targets as well.
610 * End-of-volume script can send the new volume name to tar by writing
611 it to the file descriptor stored in the environment variable TAR_FD.
614 version 1.16.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-12-09
616 * New option --exclude-tag allows to specify "exclusion tag files", i.e.
617 files whose presence in a directory means that the directory should not
620 * The --exclude-cache option excludes directories that contain the
621 CACHEDIR.TAG file from being archived. Previous versions excluded
622 directory contents only, while the directories themselves were
623 still added to the archive.
625 * Support for reading ustar type 'N' header logical records has been removed.
626 This GNU extension was generated only by very old versions of GNU 'tar'.
627 Unfortunately its implementation had security holes; see
628 <http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclosure/2006-11/0344.html>.
629 We don't expect that any tar archives in practical use have type 'N'
630 records, but if you have one and you trust its contents, you can
631 decode it with GNU tar 1.16 or earlier.
633 * Race conditions have been fixed that in some cases briefly allowed
634 files extracted by 'tar -x --same-owner' (or plain 'tar -x', when
635 running as root) to be accessed by users that they shouldn't have been.
638 version 1.16 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-10-21
640 * After creating an archive, tar exits with code 1 if some files were
641 changed while being read. Previous versions exited with code 2 (fatal
642 error), and only if some files were truncated while being archived.
644 * New option --mtime allows to set modification times for all archive
645 members during creation.
648 ** Avoid running off file descriptors when using multiple -C options.
649 ** tar --index-file=FILE --file=- sent the archive to FILE, and
650 the listing to stderr.
653 version 1.15.91 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-06-16
655 * Incompatible changes
659 Previous versions of GNU tar assumed shell-style globbing when
660 extracting from or listing an archive. For example:
664 would extract all files whose names end in '.c'. This behavior
665 was not documented and was incompatible with traditional tar
666 implementations. Therefore, starting from this version, GNU tar
667 no longer uses globbing by default. For example, the above invocation
668 is now interpreted as a request to extract from the archive the file
671 To treat member names as globbing patterns, use --wildcards option.
672 If you wish tar to mimic the behavior of versions up to 1.15.90,
673 add --wildcards to the value of the environment variable TAR_OPTIONS.
675 The exact way in which tar interprets member names is controlled by the
676 following command line options:
678 --wildcards use wildcards
679 --anchored patterns match file name start
680 --ignore-case ignore case
681 --wildcards-match-slash wildcards match '/'
683 Each of these options has a '--no-' counterpart that disables its
684 effect (e.g. --no-wildcards).
686 These options affect both the interpretation of member names from
687 command line and that of the exclusion patterns (given with --exclude
688 and --exclude-from options). The defaults are:
690 1. For member names: --no-wildcards --anchored
691 2. For exclusion patterns: --wildcards --no-anchored --wildcards-match-slash
693 The options can appear multiple times in the command line, thereby
694 changing the way command line arguments are interpreted. For example,
695 to use case-insensitive matching in exclude patterns and to revert to
696 case-sensitive matching for the rest of command line, one could write:
698 tar xf foo.tar --ignore-case --exclude-from=FILE --no-ignore-case file.name
700 ** Short option -l is now an alias of --check-links option, which complies
701 with UNIX98. This ends the transition period started with version 1.14.
705 ** New option --transform allows to transform file names before storing them
706 in the archive or member names before extracting. The option takes a
707 sed replace expression as its argument. For example,
709 tar cf foo.tar --transform 's,^,prefix/,'
711 will add 'prefix/' to all file names stored in foo.tar.
713 ** --strip-components option works when deleting and comparing. In previous
714 versions it worked only with --extract.
716 ** New option --show-transformed-names enables display of transformed file
717 or archive. It generalizes --show-stored-names option, introduced in
718 1.15.90. In particular, when creating an archive in verbose mode, it lists
719 member names as stored in the archive, i.e., with any eventual prefixes
720 removed and file name transformations applied. The option is useful,
721 for example, while comparing 'tar cv' and 'tar tv' outputs.
723 ** New incremental snapshot file format keeps information about file names
724 as well as that about directories.
726 ** The --checkpoint option takes an optional argument specifying the number
727 of records between the two successive checkpoints. Optional dot
728 starting the argument intructs tar to print dots instead of textual
731 ** The --totals option can be used with any tar operation (previous versions
732 understood it only with --create). If an argument to this option is
733 given, it specifies the signal upon delivery of which the statistics
734 is to be printed. Both forms of this option (with and without
735 argument) can be given to in a single invocation of tar.
738 ** Detect attempts to update compressed archives.
741 version 1.15.90 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2006-02-19
745 ** Any number of -T (--files-from) options may be used in the command line.
746 The file specified with -T may include any valid 'tar' options,
747 including another -T option.
748 Compatibility note: older versions of tar would only recognize -C
749 as an option name within the file list file. Now any file whose name
750 starts with - is handled as an option. To insert file names starting with
751 dash, use the --add-file option.
753 ** List files containing null-separated file names are detected and processed
754 automatically. It is no longer necessary to give the --null option.
756 ** New option --no-unquote disables the unquoting of input file names.
757 This is useful for processing output from 'find dir -print0'.
758 An orthogonal option --unquote is provided as well.
760 ** New option --test-label tests the archive volume label.
761 If an argument is specified, the label is compared against its value.
762 Tar exits with code 0 if the two strings match, and with code 2 if
765 If no argument is given, the --verbose option is implied. In this case,
766 tar prints the label name if present and exits with code 0.
768 ** New option --show-stored-names. When creating an archive in verbose mode,
769 it lists member names as stored in the archive, i.e., with any eventual
770 prefixes removed. The option is useful, for example, while comparing
771 'tar cv' and 'tar tv' outputs.
773 ** New option --to-command pipes the contents of archive members to the
776 ** New option --atime-preserve=system, which uses the O_NOATIME feature
777 of recent Linux kernels to avoid some problems when preserving file
780 ** New option --delay-directory-restore delays restoring modification times
781 and permissions of extracted directories until the end of extraction.
782 This is necessary for restoring from archives with unusual member
783 ordering (in particular, those created with --no-recursion option).
784 This option is implied when restoring from incremental archives.
786 ** New option --restrict prohibits use of some potentially harmful tar
787 options. Currently it disables '!' escape in multi-volume name menu.
789 ** New options --quoting-style and --quote-chars control the way tar
790 quotes member names on output. The --quoting-style takes an argument
791 specifying the quoting style to use (literal, shell, shell-always,
792 c, escape, locale, clocale). The argument to --quote-chars is a string
793 specifying characters to quote, even if the selected quoting style
794 would not quote them otherwise. The option --no-quote-chars is
795 provided to disable quoting certain characters.
797 ** The end-of-volume script (introduced with --info-script option) can
798 get current archive name from the environment variable TAR_ARCHIVE and
799 the volume number from the variable TAR_VOLUME. It can alter the
800 archive name by writing new name to the file descriptor 3.
802 ** Better support for full-resolution time stamps. Tar cannot restore
803 time stamps to full nanosecond resolution, though, until the kernel
804 guys get their act together and give us a system call to set file time
805 stamps to nanosecond resolution.
807 ** The -v option now prints time stamps only to 1-minute resolution,
808 not full resolution, to avoid using up too many output columns.
809 Nanosecond resolution is now supported, but that would be too much.
813 ** Allow non-option arguments to be interspersed with options.
814 ** When extracting or listing archives in old GNU format, tar
815 used to read an extra block of data after a long name header
816 if length of the member name was divisible by block size (512).
817 Consequently, the file pointer was set off and the next member
818 was not processed correctly.
819 ** Previous version created invalid archives when files shrink
821 ** Compare mode (tar d) hung when trying to compare file contents.
822 ** Previous versions in certain cases failed to restore directory
824 ** When creating an archive, do not attempt to store files whose
825 meta-data cannot be stored in the header due to format limitations
826 (for ustar and v7 formats).
827 ** The --version option now also outputs information about copyright,
828 license, and credits. This reverts to the behavior of tar 1.14 and
829 earlier, and conforms to the GNU coding standards. The --license (-L)
830 option introduced in tar 1.15 has been removed, since it's no longer
834 version 1.15.1 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-12-21
836 This version fixes a bug introduced in 1.15 which caused
837 tar to refuse to extract files from standard input.
840 version 1.15 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-12-20
842 * Compressed archives are recognised automatically, it is no longer
843 necessary to specify -Z, -z, or -j options to read them. Thus, you can
844 now run 'tar tf archive.tar.gz'.
846 * When restoring incremental dumps, --one-file-system option
847 prevents directory hierarchies residing on different devices
850 With the previous versions of tar it was dangerous to create
851 incremental dumps with --one-file-system option, since they
852 would recursively remove mount points when restoring from the
853 back up. This change fixes the bug.
855 * Renamed --strip-path to --strip-components for consistency with
858 * Skipping archive members is sped up if the archive media supports
861 * Restore script starts restoring only if it is given --all (-a) option,
862 or some patterns. This is to prevent accidental restores.
864 * 'tar --verify' prints a warning if during archive creation some of
865 the file names had their prefixes stripped off.
867 * New option --exclude-caches instructs tar to exclude cache directories
868 automatically on archive creation. Cache directories are those
869 containing a standardized tag file, as specified at:
871 http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/spec.html
873 * New configure option --with-rmt allows to specify full path name to
874 the 'rmt' utility. This supersedes DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND variable
875 introduced in version 1.14
877 * New configure variable DEFAULT_RMT_DIR allows to specify the directory
878 where to install 'rmt' utility. This is necessary since modifying
879 --libexecdir as was suggested for version 1.14 produced a side effect: it
880 also modified installation prefix for backup scripts (if
881 --enable-backup-scripts was given).
884 ** Fixed flow in recognizing files to be included in incremental dumps.
885 ** Correctly recognize sparse archive members when used with -T option.
886 ** GNU multivolume headers cannot store filenames longer than 100 characters.
887 Do not allow multivolume archives to begin with such filenames.
888 ** If a member with link count > 2 was stored in the archive twice,
889 previous versions of tar were not able to extract it, since they
890 were trying to link the file to itself, which always failed and
891 lead to removing the already extracted copy. Preserve the first
892 extracted copy in such cases.
893 ** Restore script was passing improper argument to tar --listed option (which
894 didn't affect the functionality, but was logically incorrect).
895 ** Fixed verification of created archives.
896 ** Fixed unquoting of file names containing backslash escapes (previous
897 versions failed to recognize \a and \v).
898 ** When attempting to delete a non-existing member from the archive, previous
899 versions of tar used to overwrite last archive block with zeroes.
902 version 1.14 - Sergey Poznyakoff, 2004-05-11
904 * Added support for POSIX.1-2001 and ustar archive formats.
905 * New option --format allows to select the output archive format
906 * The default output format can be selected at configuration time
907 by presetting the environment variable DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT.
908 Allowed values are GNU, V7, OLDGNU and POSIX.
909 * New option --strip-path allows to cut off a given number of
910 path elements from the name of the file being extracted.
912 * New options --index-file, --no-overwrite-dir. The --overwrite-dir
913 option is now the default; use --no-overwrite-dir if you prefer
914 the previous default behavior.
916 * The semantics of -o option is changed. When extracting, it
917 does the same as --no-same-owner GNU tar option. This is compatible
918 with UNIX98 tar. Otherwise, its effect is the same as that of
919 --old-archive option. This latter is deprecated and will be removed
922 * New option --check-links prints a message if not all links are dumped
923 for a file being archived. This corresponds to the UNIX98 -l option.
924 The current semantics of the -l option is retained for compatibility
925 with previous releases, however such usage is strongly deprecated as
926 the option will change to its UNIX98 semantics in the future releases.
928 * New option --occurrence[=N] can be used in conjunction with one of
929 the subcommands --delete, --diff, --extract or --list when a list of
930 files is given either on the command line or via -T option. This
931 option instructs tar to process only the Nth occurrence of each named
932 file. N defaults to 1, so 'tar -x -f archive --occurrence filename'
933 extracts the first occurrence of 'filename' from 'archive'
934 and terminates without scanning to the end of the archive.
936 * New option --pax-option allows to control the handling of POSIX
937 keywords in 'pax' extended headers. It is equivalent to 'pax'
940 * --incremental and --listed-incremental options work correctly on
941 individual files, as well as on directories.
943 * New scripts: backup (replaces old level-0 and level-1) and restore.
944 The scripts are compiled and installed if --enable-backup-scripts
945 option is given to configure.
947 * By default tar searches "rmt" utility in "$prefix/libexec/rmt",
948 which is consistent with the location where the version of "rmt"
949 included in the package is installed. Previous versions of tar
950 used "/etc/rmt". To install "rmt" to its traditional location,
951 run configure with option --libexecdir=/etc. Otherwise, if you
952 already have rmt installed and wish to use it, instead of the
953 shipped in version, set the variable DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND to
954 the full path name of the utility, e.g., ./configure
955 DEFAULT_RMT_COMMAND=/etc/rmt.
957 Notice also that the full path name of the "rmt" utility to
958 use can be set at runtime, by giving option --rmt-command to
961 * Removed obsolete command line options:
962 ** --absolute-paths superseded by --absolute-names
963 ** --block-compress is not needed any longer
964 ** --block-size superseded by --blocking-factor
965 ** --modification-time superseded by --touch
966 ** --read-full-blocks superseded by --read-full-records
967 ** --record-number superseded by --block-number
968 ** --version-control superseded by --backup
970 * New message translations fi (Finnish), gl (Galician), hr (Croatian),
971 hu (Hungarian), ms (Malaysian), nb (Norwegian), ro (Romanian), sk
972 (Slovak), zh_CN (Chinese simplified), zh_TW (Chinese traditional).
973 The code 'no' for Norwegian (Bokmål) has been withdrawn; use 'nb' instead.
978 version 1.13.25 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-26
983 version 1.13.24 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-22
985 * New option --overwrite-dir.
986 * Fixes for buffer overrun, porting, and copyright notice problems.
987 * The message translations for Korean are available again.
990 version 1.13.23 - Paul Eggert, 2001-09-13
992 * Bug, porting, and copyright notice fixes.
995 version 1.13.22 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-29
1000 version 1.13.21 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-28
1002 * Porting and copyright notice fixes.
1005 version 1.13.20 - Paul Eggert, 2001-08-27
1007 * Some bugs were fixed:
1009 - hard links to symbolic links
1011 * New option --recursion (the default) that is the inverse of --no-recursion.
1013 * New options --anchored, --ignore-case, --wildcards,
1014 --wildcards-match-slash, and their negations (e.g., --no-anchored).
1015 Along with --recursion and --no-recursion, these options control how
1016 exclude patterns are interpreted.
1018 * The default interpretation of exclude patterns is now --no-anchored
1019 --no-ignore-case --recursion --wildcards --wildcards-match-slash.
1020 This is a quiet change to the semantics of --exclude. The previous
1021 semantics were a failed attempt at backward compatibility but it
1022 became clear that the semantics were puzzling and did not satisfy
1023 everybody. Rather than continue to try to revive that dead horse we
1024 thought it better to substitute cleaner semantics, with options so
1025 that you can change the behavior more to your liking.
1027 * New message translations for Indonesian and Turkish.
1028 The translation for Korean has been withdrawn due to encoding errors.
1029 It will be reissued once those are fixed.
1032 version 1.13.19 - Paul Eggert, 2001-01-13
1034 * The -I option has been withdrawn, as it was buggy and confusing.
1035 Eventually it is planned to be reintroduced, with the same meaning as -T.
1037 * With an option like -N DATE, if DATE starts with "/" or ".", it is taken
1038 to be a file name; the last-modified time of that file is used as the date.
1041 version 1.13.18 - Paul Eggert, 2000-10-29
1043 * Some security problems have been fixed. 'tar -x' now modifies only
1044 files under the working directory, unless you also specify an unsafe
1045 option like --absolute-names or --overwrite.
1047 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -j,
1048 and -I is now an alias for -T, for compatibility with Solaris tar.
1050 * The manual is now distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
1052 * The new environment variable TAR_OPTIONS holds default command-line options.
1054 * The --no-recursion option now affects extraction too.
1056 * The wording in some diagnostics has been changed slightly.
1058 * Snapshot files now record whether each file was accessed via NFS.
1059 The new file format is upward- and downward-compatible with the old.
1061 * New language supported: da.
1063 * Compilation by traditional (K&R) C compilers is no longer supported.
1064 If you still use such a compiler, please use GCC instead.
1066 * This version of tar works best with GNU gzip test version 1.3 or later.
1067 Please see <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>.
1069 * 'tar --delete -f -' now works again.
1072 version 1.13.17 - Paul Eggert, 2000-01-07.
1074 * 'tar --delete -f -' is no longer allowed; it was too buggy.
1075 * Diagnostic messages have been made more regular and consistent.
1078 version 1.13.16 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-13.
1080 * By default, tar now refuses to overwrite an existing file when
1081 extracting files from an archive; instead, it removes the file
1082 before extracting it. If the existing file is a symbolic link, the
1083 link is removed and not the pointed-to file. There is one
1084 exception: existing nonempty directories are not removed, nor are
1085 their ownerships or permissions extracted. This fixes some
1086 longstanding security problems.
1088 The new --overwrite option enables the old default behavior.
1090 For regular files, tar implements this change by using the O_EXCL
1091 option of 'open' to ensure that it creates the file; if this fails, it
1092 removes the file and tries again. This is similar to the behavior of
1093 the --unlink-first option, but it is faster in the common case of
1094 extracting a new directory.
1096 * By default, tar now ignores file names containing a component of '..'
1097 when extracting, and warns about such file names when creating an archive.
1098 To enable the old behavior, use the -P or --absolute-names option.
1100 * Tar now handles file names with multibyte encodings (e.g., UTF-8, Shift-JIS)
1101 correctly. It relies on the mbrtowc function to handle multibyte characters.
1103 * The file generated by -g or --listed-incremental now uses a format
1104 that is independent of locale, so that users need not worry about
1105 locale when restoring a backup. This is needed for proper support
1106 of multibyte characters. Old-format files can still be read, and
1107 older versions of GNU tar can read new-format files, unless member
1108 names have multibyte chars.
1110 * Many diagnostics have been changed slightly, so that file names are
1111 now output unambiguously. File names in diagnostics now are either
1112 `quoted like this' (in the default C locale) or are followed by
1113 colon, newline, or space, depending on context. Unprintable
1114 characters are escaped with a C-like backslash conventions.
1115 Terminating characters (e.g., close-quote, colon, newline)
1116 are also escaped as needed.
1118 * tar now ignores socket files when creating an archive.
1119 Previously tar archived sockets as fifos, which caused problems.
1122 version 1.13.15 - Paul Eggert, 1999-12-03.
1124 * If a file's ctime changes when being archived, report an error.
1125 Previously tar looked at mtime, which missed some errors.
1128 version 1.13.14 - Paul Eggert, 1999-11-07.
1130 * New translations ja, pt_BR.
1131 * New options --help and --version for rmt.
1132 * Ignore Solaris door files when creating an archive.
1135 version 1.13.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-10-11.
1137 * Invalid headers in tar files now elicit errors, not just warnings.
1138 * 'tar --version' output conforms to the latest GNU coding standards.
1139 * If you specify an invalid date, 'tar' now substitutes (time_t) -1.
1140 * 'configure --with-dmalloc' is no longer available.
1143 version 1.13.12 - Paul Eggert, 1999-09-24.
1145 * 'tar' now supports hard links to symbolic links.
1147 * New options --no-same-owner, --no-same-permissions.
1149 * --total now also outputs a human-readable size, and a throughput value.
1151 * 'tar' now uses two's-complement base-256 when outputting header
1152 values that are out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8
1153 format. This affects archive members with negative or huge time
1154 stamps or uids, and archive members 8 GB or larger. The new tar
1155 archives cannot be read by traditional tar, or by older versions of
1156 GNU tar. Use the --old-archive option to revert to the old
1157 behavior, which uses unportable representations for negative values,
1158 and which rejects large files.
1160 * On 32-bit hosts, 'tar' now assumes that an incoming time stamp T in
1161 the range 2**31 <= T < 2**32 represents the negative time (T -
1162 2**32). This behavior is nonstandard and is not portable to 64-bit
1163 time_t hosts, so 'tar' issues a warning.
1165 * 'tar' no longer gives up extracting immediately upon discovering
1166 that an archive contains garbage at the end. It attempts to extract
1167 as many files as possible from the good data before the garbage.
1169 * A read error now causes a nonzero exit status, not just a warning.
1171 * Some diagnostics have been reworded for consistency.
1174 version 1.13.11 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-23.
1176 * The short name of the --bzip option has been changed to -I,
1177 for compatibility with paxutils.
1179 * -T /dev/null now matches nothing; previously, it matched anything
1180 if no explicit operands were given.
1182 * The '--' option now works the same as with other GNU utilities;
1183 it causes later operands to be interpreted as file names, not options,
1184 even if they begin with '-'.
1186 * For the --newer and --after-date options, the table of time zone
1187 abbreviations like 'EST' has been updated to match current practice.
1188 Also, local time abbreviations are now recognized, even if they are
1189 not in tar's hardwired table. Remember, though, that you should use
1190 numeric UTC offsets like '-0500' instead of abbreviations like
1191 'EST', as abbreviations are not standardized and are ambiguous.
1194 version 1.13.10 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-20.
1196 * 'tar' now uses signed base-64 when outputting header values that are
1197 out of the range of the standard unsigned base-8 format. [This
1198 change was superseded in 1.13.12, described above.]
1201 version 1.13.9 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-18.
1203 * 'tar' now writes two zero blocks at end-of-archive instead of just one.
1204 POSIX.1 requires this, and some other 'tar' implementations check for it.
1206 * 'tar' no longer silently accepts a block containing nonzero checksum bytes
1209 * 'tar' now reads buggy tar files that have a null byte at the start of a
1210 numeric header field.
1213 version 1.13.8 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-16.
1215 * For compatibility with traditional 'tar', intermediate directories
1216 created automatically by root are no longer given the uid and gid of
1217 the original file or directory.
1220 version 1.13.7 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-14.
1222 * --listed-incremental and --newer are now incompatible options.
1224 * When creating an archive, leading './' is no longer stripped,
1225 to match traditional tar's behavior (and simplify the documentation).
1227 * --diff without --absolute-names no longer falls back on absolute names.
1230 version 1.13.6 - Paul Eggert, 1999-08-11.
1232 * An --exclude pattern containing / now excludes a file only if it matches an
1233 initial prefix of the file name; a pattern without / continues to
1234 exclude a file if it matches any file name component.
1236 * The protocol for talking to rmt has been extended slightly.
1237 Open flags are now communicated in symbolic format as well as numeric.
1238 The symbolic format (e.g., "O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC") is for portability
1239 when rmt is operating on a different operating system from tar.
1240 The numeric format is retained, and rmt uses it if symbolic format is absent,
1241 for backward compatibility with older versions of tar and rmt.
1243 * When writing GNU tar format headers, tar now uses signed base-64
1244 for values that cannot be represented in unsigned octal.
1245 This supports larger files (2**66 - 1 bytes instead of 2**33 - 1 bytes),
1246 larger uids, negative time stamps, etc.
1248 * When extracting files with unknown ownership, tar now looks up the
1249 uid and gid "nobody" on hosts whose headers do not define UID_NOBODY
1250 and GID_NOBODY, and falls back on uid/gid -2 if there is no "nobody".
1252 * tar -t --numeric-owner now prints numeric uids and gids, not symbolic.
1254 * New option -y or --bzip2 for bzip2 compression, by popular request.
1257 version 1.13.5 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
1259 * Do the delayed updates of file metadata even after a fatal error.
1262 version 1.13.4 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-20.
1264 * Do not chmod unless we are root or the -p option was given;
1265 this matches historical practice.
1268 version 1.13.3 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-16.
1270 * A path name is excluded if any of its file name components matches an
1271 excluded pattern, even if the path name was specified on the command line.
1272 Also see 1.13.6 for later changes in this area.
1275 version 1.13.2 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-14.
1277 * Bug reporting address changed to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
1280 version 1.13.1 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-12.
1284 version 1.13 - Paul Eggert, 1999-07-08.
1286 * Support for large files, e.g., files larger than 2 GB on many 32-bit hosts.
1287 Also, support for larger uids, device ids, etc.
1288 * Many bug fixes and porting fixes.
1289 * This release is only for fixes. A more ambitious test release,
1290 with new features, is available as part of the paxutils. Please see:
1291 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/paxutils/
1292 The fixes in this release are intended to be merged with paxutils
1293 at some point, but they haven't been merged yet.
1294 * An interim GNU tar alpha had new --bzip2 and --ending-file options,
1295 but they have been removed to maintain compatibility with paxutils.
1296 Please try --use=bzip2 instead of --bzip2.
1298 Version 1.12 - François Pinard, 1997-04.
1301 * Use shell globbing patterns for --label, instead of regular expressions.
1302 * Do not quote anymore internally over the quoting done by the shell.
1305 * Offer internationalization capabilities of most recent GNU gettext.
1306 * Messages available in many more languages, thanks to all translators!
1307 * Usage of ISO 8601 dates in listings, instead of local American dates.
1308 * More normalization and cleanup in error messages.
1311 * For helping using tar with find, offer a --no-recursion option.
1312 * Implement --numeric-owner for ignoring symbolic names at create time.
1313 * New --owner, --group --mode options, still preliminary.
1314 * Recognize creating an archive on /dev/null, so Amanda works faster.
1315 * Object to the creation of an empty archive (like in 'tar cf FILE').
1316 * Barely start implementing --posix and POSIXLY_CORRECT.
1319 * Make a better job at restoring file and directory attributes.
1320 * Automatically attempt deleting existing files when in the way.
1321 * Option --unlink-first (-U) removes most files prior to extraction.
1322 * Option --recursive-unlink removes non-empty directories when in the way.
1323 * Option --numeric-owner ignores owner/group names, it uses UID/GID instead.
1324 * Use global umask when creating missing intermediate directories.
1325 * When symlinks are not available, extract symbolic links as hard links.
1326 * Diagnose extraction of contiguous files as regular files.
1327 * New --backup, --suffix and --version-control options.
1330 * Better support of huge archives with --tape-length and --totals.
1331 * Rename option --read-full-blocks (-B) to --read-full-records (-B).
1332 * Rename option --block-size (-b) to --blocking-factor (-b).
1333 * Rename option --record-number (-R) to --block-number (-R).
1334 * With --block-number (-R), report null blocks and end of file.
1335 * Implement --record-size for introducing a size in bytes.
1336 * Delete --block-compress option and rather decide it automatically.
1337 * Rename option --modification-time to --touch.
1339 Many bugs are squashed, while others still run free.
1341 Version 1.11.8 - François Pinard, 1995-06.
1343 * Messages available in French, German, Portuguese and Swedish.
1344 * The distribution provides a rudimentary Texinfo manual.
1345 * The device defaults to stdin/stdout, unless overridden by the installer.
1346 * Option --sparse (-S) should work on more systems.
1347 * Option --rsh-command may select an alternative remote shell program.
1349 Most changes are internal, and should yield better portability.
1351 Version 1.11.2 - Michael Bushnell, 1993-03.
1353 * Changes in backup scripts: cleaned up considerably; notices error
1354 conditions better over rsh; DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT is now an option in
1355 backup-specs; new file dump-remind is an example of a
1358 * Superfluous "Reading dirname" was a bug; fixed.
1360 * Incompatibility problems with a bug on Solaris are fixed.
1362 * New option --gzip (aliases are --ungzip and -z); calls gzip instead
1363 of compress. Also, --use-compress-program lets you specify any
1364 compress program. --compress-block is renamed --block-compress and
1365 now requires one of the three compression options to be specified.
1367 * Several error messages are cleaned up.
1369 * Directory owners are now set properly when running as root.
1371 * Provide DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT in backup-specs as a possible option
1374 * Behave better with broken rmt servers.
1376 * Dump scripts no longer use --atime-preserve; this causes a nasty probem.
1378 * Several Makefile cleanups.
1380 Version 1.11.1 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
1384 Version 1.11 - Michael Bushnell, 1992-09.
1385 Version 1.10.16 - 1992-07.
1386 Version 1.10.15 - 1992-06.
1387 Version 1.10.14 - 1992-05.
1388 Version 1.10.13 - 1992-01.
1392 * Now uses GNU standard configure, generated by Autoconf.
1394 * Long options now use '--'; use of '+' is deprecated and support
1395 for it will eventually be removed.
1397 * New option --null causes filenames read by -T to be
1398 null-terminated, and causes -C to be ignored.
1400 * New option --remove-files deletes files (but not directories)
1401 after they are added to the archive.
1403 * New option --ignore-failed-read prevents read-errors from affecting
1406 * New option --checkpoint prints occasional messages as the tape
1407 is being read or written.
1409 * New option --show-omitted-dirs prints the names of directories
1410 omitted from the archive.
1412 * Some tape drives which use a non-standard method of indicating
1413 end-of-tape now work correctly with multi-tape archives.
1415 * --volno-file: Read the volume number used in prompting the user
1416 (but not in recording volume ID's on the archive) from a file.
1418 * When using --multi-volume, you can now give multiple -f arguments;
1419 the various tape drives will get used in sequence and then wrap
1420 around to the beginning.
1422 * Remote archive names no longer have to be in /dev: any file with a
1423 ':' is interpreted as remote. If new option --force-local is given,
1424 then even archive files with a ':' are considered local.
1426 * New option --atime-preserve restores (if possible) atimes to
1427 their original values after dumping the file.
1429 * No longer does tar confusingly dump "." when you don't tell it
1432 * When extracting directories, tar now correctly restores their
1433 modification and access times.
1435 * Longnames support is redone differently--long name info directly
1436 precedes the long-named file or link in the archive, so you no
1437 longer have to wait for the extract to hit the end of the tape for
1440 Version 1.10 - Michael Bushnell, 1991-07.
1442 * Filename to -G is optional. -C works right. Names +newer and
1443 +newer-mtime work right.
1445 * -g is now +incremental, -G is now +listed-incremental.
1447 * Sparse files now work correctly.
1449 * +volume is now called +label.
1451 * +exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does
1452 what +exclude used to do.
1454 * Exit status is now correct.
1456 * +totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
1458 * When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
1460 * New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD
1461 dump: you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that
1462 point instead of waiting for a write error.
1464 * New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful
1465 to people. They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and
1466 shouldn't need local modification. These are what we use to do
1467 all our backups at the FSF.
1469 Version 1.09 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-10.
1470 Version 1.08 - Jay Fenlason, 1990-01.
1471 Versions 1.07 back to 1.00 by Jay Fenlason.
1473 * See ChangeLog for more details.
1477 Copyright 1994-2001, 2003-2010, 2013-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1479 This file is part of GNU tar.
1481 GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
1482 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1483 the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
1484 (at your option) any later version.
1486 GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1487 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1488 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1489 GNU General Public License for more details.
1491 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1492 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1496 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
1497 eval: (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'time-stamp)
1498 time-stamp-start: "changes. "
1499 time-stamp-format: "%:y-%02m-%02d"
1500 time-stamp-end: "\n"