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 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
64 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
65 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
66 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
67 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
68 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
71 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
75 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
76 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
78 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
79 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
81 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
82 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
84 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
85 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
87 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
88 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
90 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
92 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
93 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
94 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
97 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
99 ** Build-related bug fixes
101 installing .mo files would fail
104 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
108 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
110 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
113 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
117 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
118 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
122 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
124 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
125 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
127 ** Deprecated options
129 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
130 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
132 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
136 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
138 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
139 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
140 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
141 conforming to older POSIX versions.
143 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
146 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
152 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
157 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
159 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
161 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
162 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
163 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
165 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
166 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
167 problematic usages. These include:
169 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
170 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
171 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
172 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
173 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
174 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
175 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
176 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
177 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
179 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
180 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
182 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
183 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
184 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
185 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
187 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
188 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
189 between binary and text files.
191 The following programs now always use text input/output:
195 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
199 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
200 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
203 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
205 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
206 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
208 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
209 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
210 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
212 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
214 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
216 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
217 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
218 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
222 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
224 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
225 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
227 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
228 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
229 blocks until F contains N blocks.
233 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
234 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
238 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
239 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
240 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
244 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
245 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
249 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
251 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
253 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
257 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
258 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
259 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
261 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
262 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
263 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
264 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
265 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
267 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
271 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
272 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
273 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
275 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
277 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
278 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
279 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
280 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
282 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
284 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
285 rather than silently wrapping around.
287 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
288 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
290 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
291 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
293 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
294 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
295 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
298 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
300 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
302 ** Improved robustness
304 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
305 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
306 no matter how large the result.
308 ** Improved portability
310 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
311 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
313 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
315 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
316 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
317 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
319 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
320 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
324 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
325 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
327 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
329 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8602 (-I)
330 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
331 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
332 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
334 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
335 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
337 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
338 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
339 categories if not specified by dircolors.
341 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
343 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
344 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
346 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
347 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
349 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
351 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
352 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
354 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
355 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
357 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
358 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
359 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
361 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
363 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
365 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
369 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
371 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
372 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
373 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
375 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
376 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
378 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
379 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
380 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
382 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
383 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
385 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
386 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
387 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
388 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
390 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
391 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
393 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
394 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
395 the file system does not support it.
397 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
399 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
400 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
402 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
404 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
405 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
407 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
408 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
409 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
410 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
412 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
413 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
416 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
417 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
418 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
419 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
421 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
422 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
423 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
424 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
426 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
427 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
429 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
431 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
432 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
433 reporting incorrect results.
437 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
438 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
440 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
443 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
445 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
446 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
448 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
449 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
451 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
454 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
455 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
456 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
457 the file name does not look like a page range.
459 printf has several changes:
461 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
462 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
464 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
465 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
466 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
468 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
469 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
472 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
473 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
475 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
476 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
478 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
480 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
481 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
483 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
485 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
487 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
488 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
489 when first encountering the directory.
493 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
494 output; POSIX requires this.
496 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
497 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
499 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
501 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
502 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
504 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
505 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
507 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
508 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
509 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
510 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
511 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
512 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
513 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
515 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
516 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
517 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
519 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
520 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
522 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
524 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
526 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
527 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
528 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
529 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
531 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
535 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
536 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
537 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
538 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
539 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
541 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
542 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
543 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
545 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
546 is longer than PATH_MAX.
548 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
549 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
551 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
552 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
553 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
554 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
555 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
557 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
558 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
560 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
561 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
563 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
565 nocreat do not create the output file
566 excl fail if the output file already exists
567 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
568 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
570 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
572 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
573 direct use direct I/O for data
574 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
575 sync likewise, but also for metadata
576 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
577 nofollow do not follow symlinks
578 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
580 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
582 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
583 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
586 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
587 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
588 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
589 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
590 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
591 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
593 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
594 list of NUL-terminated file names.
596 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
599 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
601 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
603 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
604 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
606 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
607 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
608 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
610 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
611 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
612 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
614 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
616 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
617 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
619 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
620 for compatibility with bash.
622 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
624 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
625 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
626 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
627 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
629 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
630 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
632 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
634 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
635 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
636 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
638 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
641 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
643 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
644 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
645 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
646 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
647 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
648 an offset, not as a file name.
650 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
651 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
653 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
654 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
656 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
657 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
659 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
660 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
661 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
663 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
664 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
666 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
667 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
671 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
673 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
675 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
679 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
680 or more arguments between partitions.
682 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
683 holes in the destination.
685 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
686 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
687 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
688 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
689 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
690 terminates immediately.
692 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
694 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
696 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
697 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
698 not the empty string.
700 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
701 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
705 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
706 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
707 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
710 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
717 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
721 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
722 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
724 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
725 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
727 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
728 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
729 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
732 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
736 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
737 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
739 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
740 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
742 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
743 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
744 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
746 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
748 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
751 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
753 ** Configuration option
755 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
756 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
760 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
761 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
765 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
766 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
767 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
770 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
771 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
772 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
773 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
774 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
775 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
776 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
779 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
783 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
784 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
785 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
787 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
788 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
790 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
792 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
793 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
794 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
795 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
797 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
799 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
800 not just the ones that reference directories
802 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
803 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
805 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
806 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
807 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
809 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
810 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
811 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
812 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
813 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
814 ragged when a datum was too wide.
816 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
821 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
822 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
824 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
826 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
828 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
830 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
831 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
833 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
834 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
836 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
838 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
842 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
844 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
846 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
847 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
848 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
849 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
850 resolution is the best we can do right now.
852 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
853 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
855 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
856 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
858 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
859 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
861 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
862 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
863 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
867 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
868 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
869 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
870 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
871 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
872 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
873 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
874 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
875 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
876 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
877 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
878 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
879 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
880 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
882 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
884 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
885 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
887 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
889 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
891 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
892 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
894 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
896 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
897 without a trailing newline.
899 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
900 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
902 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
905 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
909 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
911 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
913 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
914 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
915 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
916 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
918 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
920 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
921 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
922 be printed without leading spaces.
924 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
925 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
930 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
931 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
932 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
934 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
936 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
937 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
939 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
940 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
942 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
943 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
945 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
947 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
949 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
951 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
952 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
954 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
956 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
958 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
959 byte offsets are specified.
962 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
965 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
968 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
969 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
970 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
971 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
972 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
973 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
974 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
975 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
976 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
977 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
978 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
979 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
980 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
981 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
982 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
983 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
984 directory where M has write access.
985 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
986 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
987 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
990 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
991 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
992 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
993 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
994 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
995 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
996 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
997 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
998 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
999 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1000 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1001 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1002 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1003 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1004 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1005 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1006 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1007 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1008 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1009 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1010 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1011 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1012 appeared one additional time.
1014 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1015 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1016 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1017 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1020 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1021 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1022 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1023 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1024 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1025 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1026 if there were more than 338.
1028 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1029 - false --help now exits nonzero
1032 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1033 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1034 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1035 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1038 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1039 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1040 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1041 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1042 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1045 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1046 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1047 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1048 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1049 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1050 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1051 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1054 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1055 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1056 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1057 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1058 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1059 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1061 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1062 under certain unusual conditions
1063 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1064 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1067 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1068 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1069 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1070 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1071 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1072 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1073 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1074 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1075 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1076 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1077 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1078 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1079 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1080 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1081 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1082 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1085 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1086 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1089 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1090 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1091 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1092 involving hard-linked directories
1093 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1094 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1095 character-special and block files
1098 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1099 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1100 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1101 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1102 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1103 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1104 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1105 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1106 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1108 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1109 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1110 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1111 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1112 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1113 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1114 specified on the command line.
1115 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1116 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1117 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1118 the first file untouched.
1119 * readlink: new program
1120 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1121 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1122 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1123 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1124 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1125 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1128 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1129 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1130 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1131 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1132 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1133 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1134 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1135 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1136 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1137 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1138 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1139 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1141 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1142 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1143 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1145 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1146 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1147 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1148 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1149 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1150 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1151 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1152 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1155 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1156 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1159 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1160 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1161 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1162 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1163 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1164 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1165 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1168 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1169 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1171 ========================================================================
1172 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1173 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1176 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1178 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1179 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1180 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1181 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1182 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1183 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1184 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1185 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1186 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1187 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1188 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1189 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1191 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1192 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1193 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1194 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1196 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1199 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1201 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1202 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1203 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1204 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1205 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1206 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1207 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1210 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1211 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1212 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1213 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1214 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1215 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1216 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1217 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1218 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1219 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1220 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1221 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1222 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1223 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1224 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1225 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1227 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1228 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1230 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1231 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1232 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1233 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1234 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1235 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1237 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1238 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1239 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1240 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1241 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1242 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1243 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1245 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1246 the source files in the following example:
1247 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1248 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1249 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1250 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1251 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1252 links between source files with --preserve=links
1253 * cp accepts new options:
1254 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1255 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1256 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1257 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1258 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1259 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1260 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1261 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1262 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1264 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1265 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1266 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1267 even though it's older than dest.
1268 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1269 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1270 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1271 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1272 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1274 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1275 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1276 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1277 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1278 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1279 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1280 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1282 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1283 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1284 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1286 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1287 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1288 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1289 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1290 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1291 This is the default.
1293 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1294 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1295 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1296 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1297 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1299 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1302 ========================================================================
1303 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1304 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1307 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1308 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1310 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1311 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1312 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1313 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1314 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1316 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1317 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1318 that specifies a non-directory
1321 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1322 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1323 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1324 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1325 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1326 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1327 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1328 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1329 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1330 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1331 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1332 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1333 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1334 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1335 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1336 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1337 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1338 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1339 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1340 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1341 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1342 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1343 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1344 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1346 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1347 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1348 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1350 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1352 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1353 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1355 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1356 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1357 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1358 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1359 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1361 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1362 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1363 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1364 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1365 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1367 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1369 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1370 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1371 * still more portability fixes
1372 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1373 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1375 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1377 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1379 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1381 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1382 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1383 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1384 there is any time remaining
1385 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1387 ========================================================================
1388 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1389 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1391 This package began as the union of the following:
1392 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.