1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Major changes in release 6.2-cvs (2006-??-??) [unstable]
5 ** Infrastructure changes
7 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
8 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
9 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
10 infrastructure, it should cause no change in the actual tools.
14 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
15 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
16 dirent.d_type support.
18 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
19 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
22 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
24 ** Changes in behavior
26 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
30 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
31 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
35 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
36 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
37 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
39 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
40 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
42 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
43 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
45 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
47 ** Improved robustness
49 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
50 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
51 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
53 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
54 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
57 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
58 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
60 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
61 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
63 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
64 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
66 ** Changes in behavior
68 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
69 where the two are distinct.
71 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
72 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
73 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
74 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
75 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
76 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
77 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
78 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
79 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
80 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
81 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
82 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
83 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
84 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
85 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
86 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
87 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
89 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
90 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
91 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
93 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
94 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
95 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
96 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
99 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
100 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
104 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
105 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
106 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
107 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
109 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
110 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
111 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
113 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
114 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
115 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
116 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
117 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
120 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
121 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
123 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
124 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
125 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
126 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
128 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
129 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
130 successful and the output is easier to parse.
132 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
133 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
134 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
135 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
137 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
138 and sticky) with the -m option.
140 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
141 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
142 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
143 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
144 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
146 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
147 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
149 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
153 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
154 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
155 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
156 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
158 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
160 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
162 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
163 silently ignoring one of them.
165 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
166 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
167 containing this change was 5.92.
169 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
170 automatically newline terminated.
172 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
173 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
174 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
175 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
178 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
179 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
180 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
183 ** Scheduled for removal
185 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
186 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
188 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
189 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
190 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
191 command to unlink a directory.
193 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
194 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
195 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
196 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
200 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
201 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
202 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
203 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
204 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
205 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
209 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
210 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
212 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
214 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
215 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
216 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
218 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
219 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
222 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
223 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
225 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
226 list directories before files.
228 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
229 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
230 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
231 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
234 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
236 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
238 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
239 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
240 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
242 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
243 list of NUL-terminated file names.
247 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
248 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
249 usually printing nothing.
251 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
253 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
254 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
255 them with hard-linked directories.
257 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
258 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
259 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
261 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
262 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
263 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
265 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
268 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
269 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
271 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
272 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
274 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
275 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
277 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
278 all command-line arguments.
280 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
282 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
284 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
285 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
287 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
289 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
290 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
291 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
292 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
293 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
295 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
296 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
298 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
299 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
300 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
301 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
303 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
305 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
309 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
310 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
312 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
313 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
315 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
316 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
318 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
319 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
321 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
322 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
324 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
326 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
327 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
328 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
331 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
333 ** Build-related bug fixes
335 installing .mo files would fail
338 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
342 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
344 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
347 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
351 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
352 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
356 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
358 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
359 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
361 ** Deprecated options
363 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
364 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
366 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
370 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
372 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
373 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
374 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
375 conforming to older POSIX versions.
377 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
380 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
386 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
391 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
393 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
395 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
396 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
397 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
399 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
400 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
401 problematic usages. These include:
403 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
404 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
405 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
406 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
407 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
408 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
409 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
410 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
411 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
413 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
414 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
416 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
417 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
418 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
419 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
421 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
422 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
423 between binary and text files.
425 The following programs now always use text input/output:
429 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
433 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
434 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
437 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
439 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
440 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
442 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
443 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
444 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
446 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
448 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
450 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
451 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
452 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
456 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
458 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
459 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
461 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
462 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
463 blocks until F contains N blocks.
467 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
468 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
472 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
473 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
474 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
478 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
479 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
483 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
485 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
487 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
491 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
492 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
493 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
495 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
496 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
497 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
498 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
499 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
501 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
505 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
506 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
507 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
509 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
511 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
512 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
513 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
514 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
516 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
518 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
519 rather than silently wrapping around.
521 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
522 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
524 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
525 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
527 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
528 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
529 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
532 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
534 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
536 ** Improved robustness
538 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
539 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
540 no matter how large the result.
542 ** Improved portability
544 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
545 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
547 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
549 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
550 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
551 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
553 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
554 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
558 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
559 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
561 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
563 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8602 (-I)
564 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
565 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
566 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
568 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
569 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
571 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
572 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
573 categories if not specified by dircolors.
575 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
577 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
578 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
580 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
581 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
583 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
585 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
586 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
588 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
589 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
591 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
592 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
593 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
595 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
597 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
599 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
603 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
605 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
606 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
607 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
609 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
610 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
612 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
613 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
614 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
616 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
617 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
619 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
620 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
621 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
622 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
624 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
625 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
627 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
628 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
629 the file system does not support it.
631 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
633 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
634 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
636 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
638 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
639 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
641 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
642 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
643 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
644 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
646 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
647 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
650 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
651 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
652 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
653 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
655 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
656 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
657 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
658 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
660 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
661 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
663 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
665 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
666 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
667 reporting incorrect results.
671 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
672 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
674 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
677 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
679 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
680 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
682 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
683 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
685 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
688 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
689 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
690 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
691 the file name does not look like a page range.
693 printf has several changes:
695 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
696 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
698 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
699 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
700 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
702 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
703 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
706 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
707 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
709 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
710 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
712 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
714 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
715 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
717 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
719 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
721 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
722 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
723 when first encountering the directory.
727 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
728 output; POSIX requires this.
730 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
731 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
733 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
735 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
736 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
738 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
739 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
741 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
742 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
743 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
744 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
745 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
746 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
747 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
749 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
750 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
751 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
753 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
754 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
756 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
758 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
760 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
761 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
762 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
763 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
765 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
769 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
770 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
771 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
772 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
773 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
775 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
776 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
777 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
779 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
780 is longer than PATH_MAX.
782 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
783 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
785 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
786 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
787 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
788 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
789 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
791 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
792 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
794 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
795 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
797 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
799 nocreat do not create the output file
800 excl fail if the output file already exists
801 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
802 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
804 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
806 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
807 direct use direct I/O for data
808 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
809 sync likewise, but also for metadata
810 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
811 nofollow do not follow symlinks
812 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
814 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
816 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
817 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
820 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
821 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
822 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
823 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
824 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
825 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
827 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
828 list of NUL-terminated file names.
830 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
833 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
835 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
837 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
838 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
840 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
841 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
842 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
844 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
845 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
846 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
848 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
850 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
851 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
853 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
854 for compatibility with bash.
856 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
858 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
859 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
860 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
861 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
863 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
864 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
866 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
868 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
869 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
870 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
872 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
875 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
877 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
878 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
879 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
880 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
881 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
882 an offset, not as a file name.
884 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
885 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
887 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
888 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
890 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
891 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
893 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
894 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
895 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
897 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
898 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
900 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
901 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
905 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
907 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
909 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
913 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
914 or more arguments between partitions.
916 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
917 holes in the destination.
919 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
920 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
921 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
922 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
923 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
924 terminates immediately.
926 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
928 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
930 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
931 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
932 not the empty string.
934 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
935 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
939 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
940 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
941 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
944 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
951 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
955 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
956 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
958 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
959 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
961 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
962 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
963 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
966 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
970 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
971 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
973 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
974 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
976 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
977 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
978 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
980 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
982 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
985 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
987 ** Configuration option
989 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
990 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
994 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
995 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
999 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1000 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1001 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1004 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1005 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1006 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1007 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1008 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1009 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1010 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1013 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1017 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1018 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1019 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1021 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1022 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1024 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1026 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1027 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1028 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1029 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1031 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1033 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1034 not just the ones that reference directories
1036 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1037 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1039 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1040 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1041 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1043 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1044 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1045 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1046 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1047 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1048 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1050 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1055 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1056 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1058 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1060 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1062 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1064 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1065 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1067 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1068 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1070 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1072 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1076 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1078 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1080 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1081 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1082 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1083 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1084 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1086 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1087 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1089 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1090 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1092 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1093 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1095 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1096 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1097 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1101 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1102 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1103 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1104 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1105 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1106 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1107 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1108 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1109 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1110 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1111 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1112 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1113 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1114 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1116 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1118 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1119 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1121 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1123 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1125 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1126 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1128 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1130 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1131 without a trailing newline.
1133 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1134 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1136 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1139 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1143 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1145 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1147 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1148 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1149 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1150 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1152 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1154 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1155 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1156 be printed without leading spaces.
1158 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1159 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1164 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1165 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1166 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1168 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1170 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1171 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1173 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1174 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1176 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1177 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1179 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1181 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1183 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1185 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1186 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1188 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1190 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1192 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1193 byte offsets are specified.
1196 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1199 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1202 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1203 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1204 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1205 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1206 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1207 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1208 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1209 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1210 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1211 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1212 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1213 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1214 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1215 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1216 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1217 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1218 directory where M has write access.
1219 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1220 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1221 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1224 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1225 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1226 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1227 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1228 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1229 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1230 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1231 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1232 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1233 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1234 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1235 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1236 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1237 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1238 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1239 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1240 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1241 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1242 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1243 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1244 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1245 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1246 appeared one additional time.
1248 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1249 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1250 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1251 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1254 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1255 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1256 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1257 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1258 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1259 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1260 if there were more than 338.
1262 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1263 - false --help now exits nonzero
1266 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1267 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1268 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1269 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1272 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1273 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1274 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1275 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1276 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1279 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1280 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1281 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1282 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1283 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1284 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1285 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1288 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1289 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1290 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1291 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1292 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1293 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1295 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1296 under certain unusual conditions
1297 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1298 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1301 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1302 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1303 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1304 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1305 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1306 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1307 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1308 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1309 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1310 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1311 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1312 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1313 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1314 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1315 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1316 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1319 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1320 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1323 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1324 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1325 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1326 involving hard-linked directories
1327 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1328 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1329 character-special and block files
1332 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1333 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1334 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1335 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1336 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1337 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1338 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1339 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1340 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1342 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1343 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1344 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1345 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1346 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1347 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1348 specified on the command line.
1349 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1350 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1351 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1352 the first file untouched.
1353 * readlink: new program
1354 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1355 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1356 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1357 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1358 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1359 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1362 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1363 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1364 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1365 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1366 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1367 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1368 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1369 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1370 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1371 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1372 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1373 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1375 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1376 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1377 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1379 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1380 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1381 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1382 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1383 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1384 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1385 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1386 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1389 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1390 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1393 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1394 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1395 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1396 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1397 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1398 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1399 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1402 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1403 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1405 ========================================================================
1406 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1407 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1410 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1412 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1413 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1414 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1415 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1416 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1417 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1418 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1419 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1420 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1421 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1422 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1423 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1425 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1426 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1427 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1428 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1430 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1433 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1435 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1436 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1437 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1438 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1439 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1440 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1441 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1444 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1445 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1446 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1447 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1448 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1449 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1450 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1451 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1452 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1453 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1454 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1455 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1456 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1457 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1458 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1459 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1461 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1462 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1464 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1465 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1466 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1467 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1468 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1469 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1471 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1472 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1473 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1474 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1475 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1476 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1477 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1479 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1480 the source files in the following example:
1481 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1482 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1483 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1484 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1485 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1486 links between source files with --preserve=links
1487 * cp accepts new options:
1488 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1489 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1490 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1491 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1492 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1493 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1494 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1495 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1496 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1498 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1499 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1500 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1501 even though it's older than dest.
1502 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1503 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1504 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1505 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1506 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1508 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1509 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1510 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1511 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1512 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1513 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1514 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1516 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1517 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1518 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1520 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1521 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1522 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1523 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1524 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1525 This is the default.
1527 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1528 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1529 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1530 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1531 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1533 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1536 ========================================================================
1537 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1538 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1541 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1542 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1544 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1545 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1546 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1547 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1548 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1550 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1551 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1552 that specifies a non-directory
1555 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1556 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1557 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1558 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1559 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1560 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1561 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1562 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1563 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1564 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1565 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1566 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1567 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1568 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1569 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1570 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1571 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1572 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1573 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1574 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1575 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1576 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1577 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1578 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1580 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1581 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1582 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1584 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1586 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1587 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1589 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1590 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1591 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1592 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1593 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1595 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1596 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1597 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1598 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1599 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1601 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1603 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1604 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1605 * still more portability fixes
1606 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1607 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1609 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1611 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1613 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1615 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1616 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1617 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1618 there is any time remaining
1619 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1621 ========================================================================
1622 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1623 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1625 This package began as the union of the following:
1626 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
1628 ========================================================================
1630 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
1633 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
1634 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
1635 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
1636 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
1637 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
1638 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.