1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9+ (????-??-??) [stable]
7 arch: equivalent to uname -m, not installed by default
8 But don't install this program on Solaris systems.
10 ** Changes in behavior
12 pr -F no longer suppresses the footer or the first two blank lines in
13 the header. This is for compatibility with BSD and POSIX.
15 tr now warns about an unescaped backslash at end of string.
16 The tr from coreutils-5.2.1 and earlier would fail for such usage,
17 and Solaris' tr ignores that final byte.
21 Add SELinux support (FIXME: add details here)
23 uniq accepts a new option: --zero-terminated (-z). As with the sort
24 option of the same name, this makes uniq consume and produce
25 NUL-terminated lines rather than newline-terminated lines.
27 wc no longer warns about character decoding errors in multibyte locales.
28 This means for example that "wc /bin/sh" now produces normal output
29 (though the word count will have no real meaning) rather than many
34 By default, "make install" no longer attempts to install (or even build) su.
35 To change that, use ./configure --enable-install-program=su.
36 If you also want to install the new "arch" program, do this:
37 ./configure --enable-install-program=arch,su.
39 You can inhibit the compilation and installation of selected programs
40 at configure time. For example, to avoid installing "hostname" and
41 "uptime", use ./configure --enable-no-install-program=hostname,uptime
42 Note: currently, "make check" passes, even when arch and su are not
43 built (that's the new default). However, if you inhibit the building
44 and installation of other programs, don't be surprised if some parts
47 ** Remove deprecated options
49 df no longer accepts the --kilobytes option.
50 du no longer accepts the --kilobytes or --megabytes options.
51 ls no longer accepts the --kilobytes option.
52 ptx longer accepts the --copyright option.
53 who no longer accepts -i or --idle.
57 cp attempts to read a regular file, even if stat says it is empty.
58 Before, "cp /proc/cpuinfo c" would create an empty file when the kernel
59 reports stat.st_size == 0, while "cat /proc/cpuinfo > c" would "work",
60 and create a nonempty one. [bug introduced in coreutils-6.0]
62 cp no longer fails to write through a dangling symlink
63 [bug introduced in coreutils-6.7]. cp --parents no
64 longer mishandles symlinks to directories in file name
65 components in the source, e.g., "cp --parents symlink/a/b
66 d" no longer fails. Also, 'cp' no longer considers a
67 destination symlink to be the same as the referenced file when
68 copying links or making backups. For example, if SYM is a symlink
69 to FILE, "cp -l FILE SYM" now reports an error instead of silently
70 doing nothing. The behavior of 'cp' is now better documented when
71 the destination is a symlink.
73 "cp -i --update older newer" no longer prompts; same for mv
75 cut now diagnoses a range starting with zero (e.g., -f 0-2) as invalid;
76 before, it would treat it as if it started with 1 (-f 1-2).
78 "cut -f 2-0" now fails; before, it was equivalent to "cut -f 2-"
80 cut now diagnoses the '-' in "cut -f -" as an invalid range, rather
81 than interpreting it as the unlimited range, "1-".
83 du -s now includes the size of any stat'able-but-inaccessible directory
86 du (without -s) prints whatever it knows of the size of an inaccessible
87 directory. Before, du would print nothing for such a directory.
89 ls -x DIR would sometimes output the wrong string in place of the
90 first entry. [introduced in coreutils-6.8]
92 ls --color would mistakenly color a dangling symlink as if it were
93 a regular symlink. This would happen only when the dangling symlink
94 was not a command-line argument and in a directory with d_type support.
95 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
97 ls --color, (with a custom LS_COLORS envvar value including the
98 ln=target attribute) would mistakenly output the string "target"
99 before the name of each symlink. [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
101 "od -j L FILE" had a bug: when the number of bytes to skip, L, is exactly
102 the same as the length of FILE, od would skip *no* bytes. When the number
103 of bytes to skip is exactly the sum of the lengths of the first N files,
104 od would skip only the first N-1 files. [introduced in textutils-2.0.9]
106 seq no longer mishandles obvious cases like "seq 0 0.000001 0.000003",
107 so workarounds like "seq 0 0.000001 0.0000031" are no longer needed.
109 Obsolete sort usage with an invalid ordering-option character, e.g.,
110 "env _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 sort +1x" no longer makes sort free an
111 invalid pointer [introduced in coreutils-6.5]
113 sorting very long lines (relative to the amount of available memory)
114 no longer provokes unaligned memory access
116 split --line-bytes=N (-C N) no longer creates an empty file
117 [this bug is present at least as far back as textutils-1.22 (Jan, 1997)]
119 tr -c no longer aborts when translating with Set2 larger than the
120 complement of Set1. [introduced with the original version, in 1992]
122 ** Improved robustness
124 stty no longer silently accepts certain invalid hex values
125 in its 35-colon commmand-line argument
128 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9 (2007-03-22) [stable]
132 cp -x (--one-file-system) would fail to set mount point permissions
134 The default block size and output format for df -P are now unaffected by
135 the DF_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE, and BLOCKSIZE environment variables. It
136 is still affected by POSIXLY_CORRECT, though.
138 Using pr -m -s (i.e. merging files, with TAB as the output separator)
139 no longer inserts extraneous spaces between output columns.
141 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.8 (2007-02-24) [not-unstable]
145 chgrp, chmod, and chown now honor the --preserve-root option.
146 Before, they would warn, yet continuing traversing and operating on /.
148 chmod no longer fails in an environment (e.g., a chroot) with openat
149 support but with insufficient /proc support.
151 "cp --parents F/G D" no longer creates a directory D/F when F is not
152 a directory (and F/G is therefore invalid).
154 "cp --preserve=mode" would create directories that briefly had
155 too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when copying a
156 directory with permissions 777 the destination directory might
157 temporarily be setgid on some file systems, which would allow other
158 users to create subfiles with the same group as the directory. Fix
159 similar problems with 'install' and 'mv'.
161 cut no longer dumps core for usage like "cut -f2- f1 f2" with two or
162 more file arguments. This was due to a double-free bug, introduced
165 dd bs= operands now silently override any later ibs= and obs=
166 operands, as POSIX and tradition require.
168 "ls -FRL" always follows symbolic links on Linux. Introduced in
171 A cross-partition "mv /etc/passwd ~" (by non-root) now prints
172 a reasonable diagnostic. Before, it would print this:
173 "mv: cannot remove `/etc/passwd': Not a directory".
175 pwd and "readlink -e ." no longer fail unnecessarily when a parent
176 directory is unreadable.
178 "rm -rf /etc/passwd" (run by non-root) now prints a diagnostic.
179 Before it would print nothing.
181 "rm --interactive=never F" no longer prompts for an unwritable F
185 sort's new --compress-program=PROG option specifies a compression
186 program to use when writing and reading temporary files.
187 This can help save both time and disk space when sorting large inputs.
189 sort accepts the new option -C, which acts like -c except no diagnostic
190 is printed. Its --check option now accepts an optional argument, and
191 --check=quiet and --check=silent are now aliases for -C, while
192 --check=diagnose-first is an alias for -c or plain --check.
195 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7 (2006-12-08) [stable]
199 When cp -p copied a file with special mode bits set, the same bits
200 were set on the copy even when ownership could not be preserved.
201 This could result in files that were setuid to the wrong user.
202 To fix this, special mode bits are now set in the copy only if its
203 ownership is successfully preserved. Similar problems were fixed
204 with mv when copying across file system boundaries. This problem
205 affects all versions of coreutils through 6.6.
207 cp --preserve=ownership would create output files that temporarily
208 had too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when
209 copying a file with group A and mode 644 into a group-B sticky
210 directory, the output file was briefly readable by group B.
211 Fix similar problems with cp options like -p that imply
212 --preserve=ownership, with install -d when combined with either -o
213 or -g, and with mv when copying across file system boundaries.
214 This bug affects coreutils 6.0 through 6.6.
216 du --one-file-system (-x) would skip subdirectories of any directory
217 listed as second or subsequent command line argument. This bug affects
218 coreutils-6.4, 6.5 and 6.6.
221 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.6 (2006-11-22) [stable]
225 ls would segfault (dereference a NULL pointer) for a file with a
226 nameless group or owner. This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.5.
228 A bug in the latest official m4/gettext.m4 (from gettext-0.15)
229 made configure fail to detect gettext support, due to the unusual
230 way in which coreutils uses AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
232 ** Improved robustness
234 Now, du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) honor a
235 trailing slash in the name of a symlink-to-directory even on
236 Solaris 9, by working around its buggy fstatat implementation.
239 * Major changes in release 6.5 (2006-11-19) [stable]
243 du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) would exit early
244 when encountering an inaccessible directory on a system with native
245 openat support (i.e., linux-2.6.16 or newer along with glibc-2.4
246 or newer). This bug was introduced with the switch to gnulib's
247 openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
249 "ln --backup f f" now produces a sensible diagnostic
253 rm accepts a new option: --one-file-system
256 * Major changes in release 6.4 (2006-10-22) [stable]
260 chgrp and chown would malfunction when invoked with both -R and -H and
261 with one or more of the following: --preserve-root, --verbose, --changes,
262 --from=o:g (chown only). This bug was introduced with the switch to
263 gnulib's openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
265 cp --backup dir1 dir2, would rename an existing dir2/dir1 to dir2/dir1~.
266 This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.0.
268 With --force (-f), rm no longer fails for ENOTDIR.
269 For example, "rm -f existing-non-directory/anything" now exits
270 successfully, ignoring the error about a nonexistent file.
273 * Major changes in release 6.3 (2006-09-30) [stable]
275 ** Improved robustness
277 pinky no longer segfaults on Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) due to a
278 buggy native getaddrinfo function.
280 rm works around a bug in Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) that would
281 sometimes keep it from removing all entries in a directory on an HFS+
282 or NFS-mounted partition.
284 sort would fail to handle very large input (around 40GB) on systems with a
285 mkstemp function that returns a file descriptor limited to 32-bit offsets.
289 chmod would fail unnecessarily in an unusual case: when an initially-
290 inaccessible argument is rendered accessible by chmod's action on a
291 preceding command line argument. This bug also affects chgrp, but
292 it is harder to demonstrate. It does not affect chown. The bug was
293 introduced with the switch from explicit recursion to the use of fts
294 in coreutils-5.1.0 (2003-10-15).
296 cp -i and mv -i occasionally neglected to prompt when the copy or move
297 action was bound to fail. This bug dates back to before fileutils-4.0.
299 With --verbose (-v), cp and mv would sometimes generate no output,
300 or neglect to report file removal.
302 For the "groups" command:
304 "groups" no longer prefixes the output with "user :" unless more
305 than one user is specified; this is for compatibility with BSD.
307 "groups user" now exits nonzero when it gets a write error.
309 "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
311 shuf would infloop, given 8KB or more of piped input
315 Versions of chmod, chown, chgrp, du, and rm (tools that use openat etc.)
316 compiled for Solaris 8 now also work when run on Solaris 10.
319 * Major changes in release 6.2 (2006-09-18) [stable candidate]
321 ** Changes in behavior
323 mkdir -p and install -d (or -D) now use a method that forks a child
324 process if the working directory is unreadable and a later argument
325 uses a relative file name. This avoids some race conditions, but it
326 means you may need to kill two processes to stop these programs.
328 rm now rejects attempts to remove the root directory, e.g., `rm -fr /'
329 now fails without removing anything. Likewise for any file name with
330 a final `./' or `../' component.
332 tail now ignores the -f option if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, no file
333 operand is given, and standard input is any FIFO; formerly it did
336 ** Infrastructure changes
338 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
339 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
340 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
341 infrastructure, it should cause no change in how the tools work.
345 cp --backup no longer fails when the last component of a source file
348 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
349 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
350 dirent.d_type support.
352 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
353 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
355 mv and "cp -r" no longer fail when invoked with two arguments
356 where the first one names a directory and the second name ends in
357 a slash and doesn't exist. E.g., "mv dir B/", for nonexistent B,
358 now succeeds, once more. This bug was introduced in coreutils-5.3.0.
361 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
363 ** Changes in behavior
365 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
369 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
370 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
374 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
375 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
376 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
378 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
379 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
381 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
382 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
384 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
386 ** Improved robustness
388 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
389 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
390 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
392 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
393 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
396 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
397 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
399 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
400 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
402 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
403 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
405 ** Changes in behavior
407 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
408 where the two are distinct.
410 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
411 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
412 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
413 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
414 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
415 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
416 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
417 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
418 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
419 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
420 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
421 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
422 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
423 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
424 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
425 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
426 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
428 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
429 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
430 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
432 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
433 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
434 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
435 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
438 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
439 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
443 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
444 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
445 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
446 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
448 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
449 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
450 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
452 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
453 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
454 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
455 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
456 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
459 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
460 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
462 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
463 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
464 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
465 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
467 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
468 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
469 successful and the output is easier to parse.
471 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
472 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
473 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
474 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
476 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
477 and sticky) with the -m option.
479 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
480 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
481 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
482 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
483 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
485 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
486 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
488 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
492 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
493 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
494 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
495 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
497 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
499 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
501 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
502 silently ignoring one of them.
504 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
505 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
506 containing this change was 5.92.
508 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
509 automatically newline terminated.
511 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
512 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
513 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
514 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
517 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
518 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
519 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
522 ** Scheduled for removal
524 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
525 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
527 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
528 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
529 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
530 command to unlink a directory.
532 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
533 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
534 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
535 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
539 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
540 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
541 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
542 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
543 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
544 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
548 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
549 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
551 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
553 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
554 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
555 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
557 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
558 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
561 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
562 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
564 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
565 list directories before files.
567 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
568 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
569 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
570 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
573 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
575 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
577 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
578 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
579 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
581 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
582 list of NUL-terminated file names.
586 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
587 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
588 usually printing nothing.
590 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
592 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
593 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
594 them with hard-linked directories.
596 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
597 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
598 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
600 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
601 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
602 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
604 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
607 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
608 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
610 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
611 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
613 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
614 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
616 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
617 all command-line arguments.
619 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
621 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
623 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
624 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
626 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
628 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
629 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
630 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
631 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
632 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
634 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
635 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
637 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
638 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
639 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
640 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
642 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
644 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
648 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
649 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
651 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
652 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
654 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
655 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
657 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
658 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
660 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
661 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
663 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
665 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
666 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
667 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
670 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
672 ** Build-related bug fixes
674 installing .mo files would fail
677 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
681 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
683 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
686 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
690 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
691 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
695 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
697 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
698 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
700 ** Deprecated options
702 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
703 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
705 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
709 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
711 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
712 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
713 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
714 conforming to older POSIX versions.
716 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
719 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
725 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
730 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
732 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
734 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
735 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
736 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
738 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
739 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
740 problematic usages. These include:
742 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
743 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
744 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
745 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
746 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
747 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
748 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
749 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
750 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
752 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
753 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
755 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
756 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
757 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
758 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
760 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
761 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
762 between binary and text files.
764 The following programs now always use text input/output:
768 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
772 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
773 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
776 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
778 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
779 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
781 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
782 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
783 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
785 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
787 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
789 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
790 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
791 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
795 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
797 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
798 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
800 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
801 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
802 blocks until F contains N blocks.
806 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
807 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
811 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
812 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
813 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
817 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
818 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
822 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
824 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
826 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
830 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
831 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
832 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
834 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
835 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
836 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
837 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
838 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
840 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
844 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
845 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
846 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
848 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
850 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
851 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
852 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
853 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
855 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
857 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
858 rather than silently wrapping around.
860 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
861 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
863 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
864 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
866 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
867 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
868 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
871 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
873 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
875 ** Improved robustness
877 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
878 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
879 no matter how large the result.
881 ** Improved portability
883 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
884 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
886 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
888 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
889 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
890 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
892 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
893 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
897 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
898 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
900 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
902 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8601 (-I)
903 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
904 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
905 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
907 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
908 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
910 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
911 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
912 categories if not specified by dircolors.
914 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
916 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
917 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
919 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
920 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
922 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
924 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
925 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
927 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
928 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
930 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
931 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
932 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
934 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
936 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
938 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
942 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
944 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
945 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
946 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
948 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
949 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
951 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
952 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
953 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
955 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
956 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
958 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
959 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
960 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
961 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
963 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
964 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
966 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
967 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
968 the file system does not support it.
970 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
972 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
973 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
975 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
977 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
978 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
980 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
981 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
982 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
983 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
985 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
986 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
989 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
990 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
991 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
992 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
994 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
995 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
996 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
997 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
999 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
1000 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
1002 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
1004 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
1005 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
1006 reporting incorrect results.
1010 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
1011 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
1013 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
1016 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
1018 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
1019 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
1021 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
1022 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
1024 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
1027 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
1028 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
1029 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
1030 the file name does not look like a page range.
1032 printf has several changes:
1034 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
1035 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
1037 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
1038 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
1039 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
1041 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
1042 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
1045 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
1046 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
1048 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
1049 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
1051 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
1053 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
1054 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
1056 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
1058 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
1060 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
1061 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
1062 when first encountering the directory.
1066 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
1067 output; POSIX requires this.
1069 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
1070 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
1072 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
1074 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
1075 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
1077 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
1078 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
1080 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
1081 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
1082 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
1083 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
1084 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
1085 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
1086 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
1088 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
1089 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
1090 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
1092 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
1093 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
1095 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
1097 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
1099 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
1100 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
1101 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
1102 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
1104 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
1108 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
1109 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
1110 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
1111 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
1112 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
1114 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
1115 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
1116 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
1118 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
1119 is longer than PATH_MAX.
1121 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
1122 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
1124 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
1125 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
1126 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
1127 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
1128 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
1130 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
1131 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
1133 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
1134 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
1136 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
1138 nocreat do not create the output file
1139 excl fail if the output file already exists
1140 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
1141 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
1143 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
1145 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
1146 direct use direct I/O for data
1147 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
1148 sync likewise, but also for metadata
1149 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
1150 nofollow do not follow symlinks
1151 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
1153 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
1155 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
1156 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
1159 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
1160 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
1161 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
1162 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
1163 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
1164 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
1166 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
1167 list of NUL-terminated file names.
1169 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
1172 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
1174 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
1176 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
1177 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
1179 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
1180 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
1181 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
1183 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
1184 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
1185 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
1187 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
1189 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
1190 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
1192 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
1193 for compatibility with bash.
1195 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
1197 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
1198 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
1199 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
1200 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
1202 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
1203 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
1205 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
1206 ls supports TABSIZE.
1207 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
1208 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
1209 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
1211 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
1214 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
1216 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
1217 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
1218 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
1219 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
1220 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
1221 an offset, not as a file name.
1223 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
1224 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
1226 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
1227 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
1229 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
1230 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
1232 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
1233 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
1234 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
1236 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
1237 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
1239 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
1240 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
1244 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
1246 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
1248 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
1252 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
1253 or more arguments between partitions.
1255 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
1256 holes in the destination.
1258 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
1259 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
1260 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
1261 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
1262 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
1263 terminates immediately.
1265 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
1267 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
1269 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
1270 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
1271 not the empty string.
1273 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
1274 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
1278 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
1279 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
1280 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
1283 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
1290 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
1294 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
1295 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
1297 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
1298 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
1300 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
1301 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
1302 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
1305 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
1309 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
1310 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
1312 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
1313 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
1315 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
1316 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
1317 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
1319 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
1321 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
1324 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
1326 ** Configuration option
1328 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
1329 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
1333 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
1334 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
1338 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1339 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1340 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1343 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1344 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1345 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1346 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1347 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1348 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1349 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1352 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1356 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1357 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1358 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1360 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1361 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1363 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1365 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1366 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1367 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1368 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1370 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1372 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1373 not just the ones that reference directories
1375 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1376 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1378 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1379 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1380 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1382 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1383 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1384 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1385 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1386 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1387 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1389 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1394 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1395 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1397 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1399 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1401 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1403 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1404 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1406 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1407 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1409 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1411 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1415 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1417 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1419 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1420 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1421 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1422 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1423 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1425 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1426 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1428 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1429 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1431 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1432 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1434 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1435 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1436 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1440 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1441 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1442 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1443 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1444 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1445 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1446 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1447 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1448 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1449 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1450 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1451 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1452 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1453 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1455 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1457 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1458 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1460 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1462 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1464 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1465 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1467 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1469 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1470 without a trailing newline.
1472 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1473 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1475 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1478 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1482 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1484 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1486 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1487 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1488 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1489 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1491 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1493 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1494 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1495 be printed without leading spaces.
1497 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1498 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1503 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1504 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1505 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1507 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1509 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1510 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1512 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1513 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1515 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1516 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1518 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1520 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1522 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1524 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1525 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1527 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1529 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1531 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1532 byte offsets are specified.
1535 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1538 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1541 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1542 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1543 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1544 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1545 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1546 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1547 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1548 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1549 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1550 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1551 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1552 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1553 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1554 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1555 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1556 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1557 directory where M has write access.
1558 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1559 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1560 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1563 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1564 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1565 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1566 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1567 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1568 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1569 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1570 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1571 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1572 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1573 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1574 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1575 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1576 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1577 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1578 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1579 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1580 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1581 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1582 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1583 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1584 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1585 appeared one additional time.
1587 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1588 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1589 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1590 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1593 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1594 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1595 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1596 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1597 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1598 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1599 if there were more than 338.
1601 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1602 - false --help now exits nonzero
1605 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1606 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1607 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1608 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1611 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1612 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1613 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1614 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1615 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1618 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1619 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1620 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1621 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1622 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1623 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1624 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1627 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1628 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1629 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1630 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1631 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1632 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1634 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1635 under certain unusual conditions
1636 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1637 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1640 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1641 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1642 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1643 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1644 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1645 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1646 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1647 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1648 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1649 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1650 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1651 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1652 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1653 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1654 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1655 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1658 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1659 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1662 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1663 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1664 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1665 involving hard-linked directories
1666 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1667 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1668 character-special and block files
1671 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1672 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1673 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1674 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1675 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1676 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1677 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1678 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1679 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1681 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1682 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1683 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1684 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1685 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1686 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1687 specified on the command line.
1688 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1689 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1690 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1691 the first file untouched.
1692 * readlink: new program
1693 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1694 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1695 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1696 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1697 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1698 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1701 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1702 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1703 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1704 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1705 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1706 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1707 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1708 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1709 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1710 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1711 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1712 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1714 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1715 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1716 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1718 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1719 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1720 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1721 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1722 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1723 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1724 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1725 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1728 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1729 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1732 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1733 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1734 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1735 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1736 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1737 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1738 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1741 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1742 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1744 ========================================================================
1745 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1746 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1749 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1751 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1752 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1753 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1754 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1755 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1756 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1757 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1758 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1759 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1760 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1761 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1762 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1764 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1765 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1766 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1767 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1769 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1772 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1774 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1775 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1776 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1777 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1778 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1779 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1780 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1783 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1784 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1785 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1786 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1787 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1788 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1789 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1790 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1791 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1792 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1793 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1794 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1795 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1796 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1797 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1798 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1800 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1801 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1803 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1804 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1805 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1806 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1807 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1808 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1810 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1811 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1812 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1813 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1814 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1815 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1816 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1818 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1819 the source files in the following example:
1820 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1821 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1822 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1823 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1824 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1825 links between source files with --preserve=links
1826 * cp accepts new options:
1827 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1828 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1829 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1830 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1831 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1832 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1833 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1834 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1835 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1837 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1838 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1839 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1840 even though it's older than dest.
1841 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1842 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1843 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1844 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1845 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1847 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1848 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1849 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1850 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1851 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1852 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1853 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1855 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1856 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1857 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1859 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1860 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1861 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1862 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1863 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1864 This is the default.
1866 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1867 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1868 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1869 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1870 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1872 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1875 ========================================================================
1876 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1877 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1880 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1881 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1883 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1884 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1885 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1886 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1887 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1889 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1890 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1891 that specifies a non-directory
1894 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1895 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1896 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1897 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1898 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1899 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1900 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1901 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1902 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1903 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1904 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1905 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1906 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1907 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1908 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1909 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1910 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1911 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1912 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1913 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1914 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1915 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1916 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1917 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1919 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1920 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1921 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1923 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1925 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1926 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1928 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1929 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1930 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1931 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1932 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1934 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1935 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1936 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1937 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1938 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1940 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1942 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1943 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1944 * still more portability fixes
1945 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1946 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1948 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1950 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1952 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1954 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1955 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1956 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1957 there is any time remaining
1958 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1960 ========================================================================
1961 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1962 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1964 This package began as the union of the following:
1965 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
1967 ========================================================================
1969 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
1972 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
1973 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
1974 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
1975 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
1976 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
1977 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.