1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Major changes in release 6.0-cvs (????-??-??) [unstable]
7 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
8 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
10 ** Changes in behavior
12 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
13 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
14 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by chrooted
15 bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
17 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
18 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
19 successful and the output is easier to parse.
21 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
22 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
23 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
24 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
26 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
27 silently ignoring one of them.
29 ** Scheduled for removal
31 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
32 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
33 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
34 command to unlink a directory.
36 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
37 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
38 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
39 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
43 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
44 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
45 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
46 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
50 dd's new iflag=noatime option causes it to read a file without
51 updating its access time, on hosts that support this (currently only
52 Linux kernels, version 2.6.8 and later).
54 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option,
55 as well as the --seed=STRING option.
59 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
60 all command-line arguments.
62 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
63 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
64 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
65 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
66 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
69 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
73 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
74 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
76 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
77 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
79 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
80 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
82 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
83 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
85 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
86 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
88 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
90 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
91 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
92 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
95 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
97 ** Build-related bug fixes
99 installing .mo files would fail
102 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
106 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
108 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
111 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
115 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
116 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
120 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
122 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
123 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
125 ** Deprecated options
127 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
128 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
130 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
134 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
136 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
137 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
138 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
139 conforming to older POSIX versions.
141 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
144 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
150 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
155 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
157 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
159 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
160 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
161 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
163 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
164 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
165 problematic usages. These include:
167 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
168 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
169 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
170 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
171 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
172 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
173 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
174 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
175 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
177 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
178 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
180 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
181 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
182 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
183 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
185 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
186 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
187 between binary and text files.
189 The following programs now always use text input/output:
193 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
197 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
198 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
201 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
203 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
204 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
206 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
207 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
208 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
210 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
212 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
214 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
215 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
216 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
220 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
222 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
223 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
225 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
226 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
227 blocks until F contains N blocks.
231 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
232 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
236 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
237 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
238 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
242 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
243 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
247 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
249 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
251 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
255 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
256 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
257 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
259 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
260 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
261 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
262 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
263 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
265 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
269 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
270 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
271 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
273 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
275 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
276 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
277 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
278 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
280 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
282 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
283 rather than silently wrapping around.
285 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
286 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
288 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
289 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
291 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
292 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
293 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
296 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
298 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
300 ** Improved robustness
302 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
303 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
304 no matter how large the result.
306 ** Improved portability
308 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
309 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
311 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
313 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
314 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
315 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
317 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
318 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
322 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
323 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
325 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
327 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8602 (-I)
328 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
329 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
330 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
332 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
333 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
335 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
336 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
337 categories if not specified by dircolors.
339 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
341 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
342 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
344 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
345 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
347 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
349 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
350 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
352 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
353 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
355 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
356 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
357 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
359 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
361 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
363 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
367 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
369 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
370 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
371 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
373 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
374 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
376 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
377 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
378 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
380 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
381 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
383 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
384 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
385 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
386 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
388 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
389 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
391 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
392 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
393 the file system does not support it.
395 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
397 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
398 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
400 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
402 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
403 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
405 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
406 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
407 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
408 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
410 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
411 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
414 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
415 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
416 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
417 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
419 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
420 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
421 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
422 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
424 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
425 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
427 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
429 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
430 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
431 reporting incorrect results.
435 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
436 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
438 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
441 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
443 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
444 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
446 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
447 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
449 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
452 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
453 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
454 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
455 the file name does not look like a page range.
457 printf has several changes:
459 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
460 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
462 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
463 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
464 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
466 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
467 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
470 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
471 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
473 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
474 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
476 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
478 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
479 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
481 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
483 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
485 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
486 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
487 when first encountering the directory.
491 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
492 output; POSIX requires this.
494 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
495 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
497 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
499 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
500 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
502 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
503 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
505 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
506 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
507 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
508 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
509 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
510 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
511 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
513 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
514 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
515 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
517 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
518 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
520 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
522 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
524 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
525 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
526 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
527 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
529 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
533 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
534 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
535 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
536 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
537 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
539 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
540 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
541 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
543 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
544 is longer than PATH_MAX.
546 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
547 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
549 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
550 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
551 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
552 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
553 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
555 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
556 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
558 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
559 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
561 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
563 nocreat do not create the output file
564 excl fail if the output file already exists
565 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
566 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
568 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
570 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
571 direct use direct I/O for data
572 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
573 sync likewise, but also for metadata
574 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
575 nofollow do not follow symlinks
576 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
578 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
580 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
581 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
584 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
585 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
586 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
587 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
588 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
589 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
591 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
592 list of NUL-terminated file names.
594 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
597 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
599 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
601 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
602 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
604 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
605 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
606 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
608 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
609 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
610 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
612 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
614 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
615 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
617 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
618 for compatibility with bash.
620 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
622 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
623 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
624 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
625 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
627 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
628 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
630 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
632 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
633 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
634 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
636 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
639 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
641 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
642 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
643 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
644 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
645 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
646 an offset, not as a file name.
648 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
649 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
651 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
652 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
654 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
655 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
657 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
658 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
659 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
661 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
662 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
664 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
665 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
669 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
671 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
673 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
677 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
678 or more arguments between partitions.
680 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
681 holes in the destination.
683 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
684 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
685 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
686 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
687 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
688 terminates immediately.
690 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
692 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
694 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
695 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
696 not the empty string.
698 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
699 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
703 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
704 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
705 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
708 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
715 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
719 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
720 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
722 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
723 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
725 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
726 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
727 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
730 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
734 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
735 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
737 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
738 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
740 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
741 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
742 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
744 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
746 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
749 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
751 ** Configuration option
753 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
754 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
758 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
759 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
763 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
764 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
765 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
768 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
769 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
770 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
771 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
772 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
773 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
774 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
777 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
781 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
782 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
783 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
785 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
786 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
788 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
790 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
791 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
792 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
793 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
795 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
797 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
798 not just the ones that reference directories
800 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
801 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
803 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
804 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
805 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
807 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
808 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
809 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
810 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
811 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
812 ragged when a datum was too wide.
814 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
819 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
820 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
822 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
824 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
826 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
828 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
829 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
831 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
832 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
834 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
836 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
840 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
842 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
844 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
845 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
846 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
847 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
848 resolution is the best we can do right now.
850 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
851 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
853 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
854 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
856 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
857 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
859 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
860 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
861 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
865 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
866 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
867 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
868 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
869 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
870 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
871 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
872 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
873 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
874 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
875 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
876 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
877 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
878 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
880 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
882 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
883 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
885 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
887 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
889 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
890 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
892 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
894 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
895 without a trailing newline.
897 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
898 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
900 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
903 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
907 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
909 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
911 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
912 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
913 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
914 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
916 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
918 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
919 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
920 be printed without leading spaces.
922 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
923 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
928 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
929 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
930 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
932 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
934 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
935 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
937 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
938 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
940 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
941 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
943 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
945 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
947 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
949 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
950 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
952 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
954 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
956 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
957 byte offsets are specified.
960 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
963 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
966 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
967 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
968 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
969 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
970 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
971 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
972 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
973 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
974 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
975 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
976 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
977 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
978 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
979 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
980 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
981 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
982 directory where M has write access.
983 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
984 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
985 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
988 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
989 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
990 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
991 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
992 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
993 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
994 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
995 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
996 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
997 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
998 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
999 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1000 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1001 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1002 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1003 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1004 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1005 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1006 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1007 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1008 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1009 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1010 appeared one additional time.
1012 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1013 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1014 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1015 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1018 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1019 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1020 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1021 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1022 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1023 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1024 if there were more than 338.
1026 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1027 - false --help now exits nonzero
1030 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1031 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1032 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1033 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1036 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1037 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1038 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1039 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1040 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1043 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1044 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1045 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1046 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1047 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1048 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1049 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1052 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1053 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1054 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1055 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1056 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1057 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1059 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1060 under certain unusual conditions
1061 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1062 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1065 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1066 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1067 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1068 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1069 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1070 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1071 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1072 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1073 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1074 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1075 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1076 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1077 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1078 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1079 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1080 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1083 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1084 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1087 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1088 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1089 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1090 involving hard-linked directories
1091 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1092 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1093 character-special and block files
1096 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1097 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1098 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1099 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1100 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1101 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1102 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1103 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1104 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1106 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1107 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1108 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1109 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1110 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1111 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1112 specified on the command line.
1113 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1114 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1115 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1116 the first file untouched.
1117 * readlink: new program
1118 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1119 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1120 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1121 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1122 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1123 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1126 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1127 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1128 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1129 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1130 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1131 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1132 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1133 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1134 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1135 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1136 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1137 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1139 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1140 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1141 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1143 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1144 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1145 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1146 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1147 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1148 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1149 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1150 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1153 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1154 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1157 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1158 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1159 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1160 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1161 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1162 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1163 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1166 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1167 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1169 ========================================================================
1170 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1171 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1174 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1176 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1177 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1178 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1179 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1180 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1181 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1182 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1183 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1184 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1185 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1186 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1187 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1189 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1190 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1191 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1192 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1194 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1197 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1199 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1200 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1201 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1202 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1203 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1204 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1205 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1208 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1209 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1210 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1211 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1212 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1213 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1214 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1215 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1216 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1217 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1218 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1219 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1220 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1221 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1222 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1223 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1225 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1226 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1228 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1229 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1230 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1231 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1232 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1233 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1235 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1236 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1237 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1238 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1239 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1240 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1241 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1243 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1244 the source files in the following example:
1245 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1246 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1247 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1248 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1249 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1250 links between source files with --preserve=links
1251 * cp accepts new options:
1252 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1253 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1254 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1255 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1256 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1257 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1258 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1259 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1260 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1262 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1263 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1264 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1265 even though it's older than dest.
1266 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1267 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1268 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1269 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1270 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1272 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1273 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1274 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1275 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1276 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1277 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1278 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1280 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1281 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1282 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1284 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1285 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1286 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1287 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1288 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1289 This is the default.
1291 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1292 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1293 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1294 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1295 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1297 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1300 ========================================================================
1301 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1302 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1305 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1306 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1308 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1309 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1310 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1311 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1312 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1314 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1315 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1316 that specifies a non-directory
1319 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1320 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1321 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1322 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1323 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1324 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1325 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1326 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1327 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1328 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1329 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1330 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1331 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1332 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1333 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1334 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1335 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1336 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1337 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1338 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1339 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1340 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1341 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1342 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1344 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1345 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1346 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1348 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1350 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1351 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1353 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1354 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1355 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1356 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1357 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1359 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1360 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1361 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1362 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1363 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1365 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1367 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1368 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1369 * still more portability fixes
1370 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1371 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1373 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1375 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1377 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1379 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1380 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1381 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1382 there is any time remaining
1383 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1385 ========================================================================
1386 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1387 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1389 This package began as the union of the following:
1390 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.