1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9+ (????-??-??) [stable]
7 arch: equivalent to uname -m, not installed by default
8 But don't install this program on Solaris systems.
10 ** Changes in behavior
12 pr -F no longer suppresses the footer or the first two blank lines in
13 the header. This is for compatibility with BSD and POSIX.
17 Add SELinux support (FIXME: add details here)
19 uniq accepts a new option: --zero-terminated (-z). As with the sort
20 option of the same name, this makes uniq consume and produce
21 NUL-terminated lines rather than newline-terminated lines.
23 wc no longer warns about character decoding errors in multibyte locales.
24 This means for example that "wc /bin/sh" now produces normal output
25 (though the word count will have no real meaning) rather than many
30 By default, "make install" no longer attempts to install (or even build) su.
31 To change that, use ./configure --enable-install-program=su.
32 If you also want to install the new "arch" program, do this:
33 ./configure --enable-install-program=arch,su.
35 You can inhibit the compilation and installation of selected programs
36 at configure time. For example, to avoid installing "hostname" and
37 "uptime", use ./configure --enable-no-install-program=hostname,uptime
41 cp no longer fails to write through a dangling symlink
42 [bug introduced in coreutils-6.7]. cp --parents no
43 longer mishandles symlinks to directories in file name
44 components in the source, e.g., "cp --parents symlink/a/b
45 d" no longer fails. Also, 'cp' no longer considers a
46 destination symlink to be the same as the referenced file when
47 copying links or making backups. For example, if SYM is a symlink
48 to FILE, "cp -l FILE SYM" now reports an error instead of silently
49 doing nothing. The behavior of 'cp' is now better documented when
50 the destination is a symlink.
52 cut now diagnoses a range starting with zero (e.g., -f 0-2) as invalid;
53 before, it would treat it as if it started with 1 (-f 1-2).
55 "cut -f 2-0" now fails; before, it was equivalent to "cut -f 2-"
57 cut now diagnoses the '-' in "cut -f -" as an invalid range, rather
58 than interpreting it as the unlimited range, "1-".
60 ls -x DIR would sometimes output the wrong string in place of the
61 first entry. [introduced in coreutils-6.8]
63 ls --color would mistakenly color a dangling symlink as if it were
64 a regular symlink. This would happen only when the dangling symlink
65 was not a command-line argument and in a directory with d_type support.
66 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
68 ls --color, (with a custom LS_COLORS envvar value including the
69 ln=target attribute) would mistakenly output the string "target"
70 before the name of each symlink. [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
72 seq no longer mishandles obvious cases like "seq 0 0.000001 0.000003",
73 so workarounds like "seq 0 0.000001 0.0000031" are no longer needed.
75 split --line-bytes=N (-C N) no longer creates an empty file
76 [this bug is present at least as far back as textutils-1.22 (Jan, 1997)]
78 tr -c no longer aborts when translating with Set2 larger than the
79 complement of Set1. [introduced with the original version, in 1992]
81 ** Improved robustness
83 stty no longer silently accepts certain invalid hex values
84 in its 35-colon commmand-line argument
87 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9 (2007-03-22) [stable]
91 cp -x (--one-file-system) would fail to set mount point permissions
93 The default block size and output format for df -P are now unaffected by
94 the DF_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE, and BLOCKSIZE environment variables. It
95 is still affected by POSIXLY_CORRECT, though.
97 Using pr -m -s (i.e. merging files, with TAB as the output separator)
98 no longer inserts extraneous spaces between output columns.
101 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.8 (2007-02-24) [not-unstable]
105 chgrp, chmod, and chown now honor the --preserve-root option.
106 Before, they would warn, yet continuing traversing and operating on /.
108 chmod no longer fails in an environment (e.g., a chroot) with openat
109 support but with insufficient /proc support.
111 "cp --parents F/G D" no longer creates a directory D/F when F is not
112 a directory (and F/G is therefore invalid).
114 "cp --preserve=mode" would create directories that briefly had
115 too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when copying a
116 directory with permissions 777 the destination directory might
117 temporarily be setgid on some file systems, which would allow other
118 users to create subfiles with the same group as the directory. Fix
119 similar problems with 'install' and 'mv'.
121 cut no longer dumps core for usage like "cut -f2- f1 f2" with two or
122 more file arguments. This was due to a double-free bug, introduced
125 dd bs= operands now silently override any later ibs= and obs=
126 operands, as POSIX and tradition require.
128 "ls -FRL" always follows symbolic links on Linux. Introduced in
131 A cross-partition "mv /etc/passwd ~" (by non-root) now prints
132 a reasonable diagnostic. Before, it would print this:
133 "mv: cannot remove `/etc/passwd': Not a directory".
135 pwd and "readlink -e ." no longer fail unnecessarily when a parent
136 directory is unreadable.
138 "rm -rf /etc/passwd" (run by non-root) now prints a diagnostic.
139 Before it would print nothing.
141 "rm --interactive=never F" no longer prompts for an unwritable F
145 sort's new --compress-program=PROG option specifies a compression
146 program to use when writing and reading temporary files.
147 This can help save both time and disk space when sorting large inputs.
149 sort accepts the new option -C, which acts like -c except no diagnostic
150 is printed. Its --check option now accepts an optional argument, and
151 --check=quiet and --check=silent are now aliases for -C, while
152 --check=diagnose-first is an alias for -c or plain --check.
155 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7 (2006-12-08) [stable]
159 When cp -p copied a file with special mode bits set, the same bits
160 were set on the copy even when ownership could not be preserved.
161 This could result in files that were setuid to the wrong user.
162 To fix this, special mode bits are now set in the copy only if its
163 ownership is successfully preserved. Similar problems were fixed
164 with mv when copying across file system boundaries. This problem
165 affects all versions of coreutils through 6.6.
167 cp --preserve=ownership would create output files that temporarily
168 had too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when
169 copying a file with group A and mode 644 into a group-B sticky
170 directory, the output file was briefly readable by group B.
171 Fix similar problems with cp options like -p that imply
172 --preserve=ownership, with install -d when combined with either -o
173 or -g, and with mv when copying across file system boundaries.
174 This bug affects coreutils 6.0 through 6.6.
176 du --one-file-system (-x) would skip subdirectories of any directory
177 listed as second or subsequent command line argument. This bug affects
178 coreutils-6.4, 6.5 and 6.6.
181 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.6 (2006-11-22) [stable]
185 ls would segfault (dereference a NULL pointer) for a file with a
186 nameless group or owner. This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.5.
188 A bug in the latest official m4/gettext.m4 (from gettext-0.15)
189 made configure fail to detect gettext support, due to the unusual
190 way in which coreutils uses AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
192 ** Improved robustness
194 Now, du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) honor a
195 trailing slash in the name of a symlink-to-directory even on
196 Solaris 9, by working around its buggy fstatat implementation.
199 * Major changes in release 6.5 (2006-11-19) [stable]
203 du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) would exit early
204 when encountering an inaccessible directory on a system with native
205 openat support (i.e., linux-2.6.16 or newer along with glibc-2.4
206 or newer). This bug was introduced with the switch to gnulib's
207 openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
209 "ln --backup f f" now produces a sensible diagnostic
213 rm accepts a new option: --one-file-system
216 * Major changes in release 6.4 (2006-10-22) [stable]
220 chgrp and chown would malfunction when invoked with both -R and -H and
221 with one or more of the following: --preserve-root, --verbose, --changes,
222 --from=o:g (chown only). This bug was introduced with the switch to
223 gnulib's openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
225 cp --backup dir1 dir2, would rename an existing dir2/dir1 to dir2/dir1~.
226 This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.0.
228 With --force (-f), rm no longer fails for ENOTDIR.
229 For example, "rm -f existing-non-directory/anything" now exits
230 successfully, ignoring the error about a nonexistent file.
233 * Major changes in release 6.3 (2006-09-30) [stable]
235 ** Improved robustness
237 pinky no longer segfaults on Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) due to a
238 buggy native getaddrinfo function.
240 rm works around a bug in Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) that would
241 sometimes keep it from removing all entries in a directory on an HFS+
242 or NFS-mounted partition.
244 sort would fail to handle very large input (around 40GB) on systems with a
245 mkstemp function that returns a file descriptor limited to 32-bit offsets.
249 chmod would fail unnecessarily in an unusual case: when an initially-
250 inaccessible argument is rendered accessible by chmod's action on a
251 preceding command line argument. This bug also affects chgrp, but
252 it is harder to demonstrate. It does not affect chown. The bug was
253 introduced with the switch from explicit recursion to the use of fts
254 in coreutils-5.1.0 (2003-10-15).
256 cp -i and mv -i occasionally neglected to prompt when the copy or move
257 action was bound to fail. This bug dates back to before fileutils-4.0.
259 With --verbose (-v), cp and mv would sometimes generate no output,
260 or neglect to report file removal.
262 For the "groups" command:
264 "groups" no longer prefixes the output with "user :" unless more
265 than one user is specified; this is for compatibility with BSD.
267 "groups user" now exits nonzero when it gets a write error.
269 "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
271 shuf would infloop, given 8KB or more of piped input
275 Versions of chmod, chown, chgrp, du, and rm (tools that use openat etc.)
276 compiled for Solaris 8 now also work when run on Solaris 10.
279 * Major changes in release 6.2 (2006-09-18) [stable candidate]
281 ** Changes in behavior
283 mkdir -p and install -d (or -D) now use a method that forks a child
284 process if the working directory is unreadable and a later argument
285 uses a relative file name. This avoids some race conditions, but it
286 means you may need to kill two processes to stop these programs.
288 rm now rejects attempts to remove the root directory, e.g., `rm -fr /'
289 now fails without removing anything. Likewise for any file name with
290 a final `./' or `../' component.
292 tail now ignores the -f option if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, no file
293 operand is given, and standard input is any FIFO; formerly it did
296 ** Infrastructure changes
298 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
299 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
300 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
301 infrastructure, it should cause no change in how the tools work.
305 cp --backup no longer fails when the last component of a source file
308 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
309 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
310 dirent.d_type support.
312 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
313 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
315 mv and "cp -r" no longer fail when invoked with two arguments
316 where the first one names a directory and the second name ends in
317 a slash and doesn't exist. E.g., "mv dir B/", for nonexistent B,
318 now succeeds, once more. This bug was introduced in coreutils-5.3.0.
321 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
323 ** Changes in behavior
325 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
329 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
330 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
334 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
335 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
336 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
338 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
339 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
341 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
342 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
344 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
346 ** Improved robustness
348 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
349 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
350 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
352 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
353 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
356 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
357 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
359 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
360 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
362 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
363 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
365 ** Changes in behavior
367 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
368 where the two are distinct.
370 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
371 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
372 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
373 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
374 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
375 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
376 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
377 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
378 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
379 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
380 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
381 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
382 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
383 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
384 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
385 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
386 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
388 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
389 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
390 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
392 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
393 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
394 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
395 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
398 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
399 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
403 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
404 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
405 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
406 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
408 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
409 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
410 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
412 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
413 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
414 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
415 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
416 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
419 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
420 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
422 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
423 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
424 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
425 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
427 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
428 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
429 successful and the output is easier to parse.
431 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
432 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
433 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
434 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
436 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
437 and sticky) with the -m option.
439 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
440 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
441 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
442 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
443 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
445 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
446 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
448 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
452 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
453 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
454 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
455 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
457 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
459 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
461 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
462 silently ignoring one of them.
464 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
465 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
466 containing this change was 5.92.
468 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
469 automatically newline terminated.
471 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
472 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
473 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
474 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
477 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
478 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
479 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
482 ** Scheduled for removal
484 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
485 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
487 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
488 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
489 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
490 command to unlink a directory.
492 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
493 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
494 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
495 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
499 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
500 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
501 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
502 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
503 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
504 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
508 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
509 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
511 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
513 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
514 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
515 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
517 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
518 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
521 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
522 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
524 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
525 list directories before files.
527 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
528 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
529 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
530 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
533 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
535 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
537 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
538 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
539 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
541 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
542 list of NUL-terminated file names.
546 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
547 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
548 usually printing nothing.
550 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
552 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
553 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
554 them with hard-linked directories.
556 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
557 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
558 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
560 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
561 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
562 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
564 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
567 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
568 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
570 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
571 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
573 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
574 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
576 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
577 all command-line arguments.
579 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
581 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
583 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
584 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
586 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
588 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
589 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
590 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
591 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
592 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
594 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
595 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
597 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
598 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
599 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
600 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
602 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
604 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
608 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
609 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
611 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
612 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
614 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
615 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
617 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
618 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
620 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
621 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
623 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
625 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
626 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
627 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
630 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
632 ** Build-related bug fixes
634 installing .mo files would fail
637 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
641 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
643 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
646 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
650 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
651 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
655 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
657 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
658 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
660 ** Deprecated options
662 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
663 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
665 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
669 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
671 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
672 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
673 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
674 conforming to older POSIX versions.
676 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
679 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
685 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
690 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
692 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
694 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
695 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
696 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
698 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
699 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
700 problematic usages. These include:
702 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
703 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
704 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
705 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
706 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
707 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
708 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
709 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
710 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
712 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
713 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
715 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
716 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
717 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
718 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
720 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
721 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
722 between binary and text files.
724 The following programs now always use text input/output:
728 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
732 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
733 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
736 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
738 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
739 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
741 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
742 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
743 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
745 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
747 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
749 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
750 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
751 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
755 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
757 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
758 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
760 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
761 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
762 blocks until F contains N blocks.
766 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
767 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
771 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
772 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
773 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
777 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
778 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
782 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
784 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
786 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
790 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
791 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
792 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
794 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
795 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
796 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
797 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
798 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
800 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
804 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
805 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
806 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
808 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
810 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
811 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
812 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
813 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
815 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
817 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
818 rather than silently wrapping around.
820 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
821 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
823 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
824 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
826 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
827 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
828 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
831 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
833 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
835 ** Improved robustness
837 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
838 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
839 no matter how large the result.
841 ** Improved portability
843 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
844 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
846 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
848 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
849 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
850 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
852 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
853 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
857 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
858 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
860 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
862 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8601 (-I)
863 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
864 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
865 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
867 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
868 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
870 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
871 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
872 categories if not specified by dircolors.
874 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
876 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
877 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
879 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
880 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
882 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
884 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
885 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
887 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
888 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
890 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
891 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
892 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
894 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
896 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
898 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
902 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
904 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
905 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
906 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
908 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
909 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
911 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
912 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
913 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
915 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
916 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
918 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
919 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
920 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
921 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
923 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
924 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
926 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
927 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
928 the file system does not support it.
930 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
932 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
933 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
935 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
937 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
938 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
940 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
941 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
942 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
943 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
945 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
946 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
949 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
950 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
951 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
952 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
954 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
955 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
956 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
957 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
959 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
960 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
962 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
964 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
965 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
966 reporting incorrect results.
970 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
971 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
973 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
976 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
978 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
979 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
981 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
982 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
984 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
987 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
988 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
989 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
990 the file name does not look like a page range.
992 printf has several changes:
994 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
995 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
997 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
998 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
999 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
1001 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
1002 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
1005 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
1006 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
1008 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
1009 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
1011 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
1013 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
1014 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
1016 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
1018 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
1020 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
1021 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
1022 when first encountering the directory.
1026 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
1027 output; POSIX requires this.
1029 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
1030 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
1032 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
1034 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
1035 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
1037 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
1038 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
1040 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
1041 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
1042 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
1043 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
1044 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
1045 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
1046 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
1048 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
1049 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
1050 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
1052 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
1053 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
1055 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
1057 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
1059 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
1060 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
1061 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
1062 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
1064 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
1068 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
1069 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
1070 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
1071 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
1072 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
1074 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
1075 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
1076 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
1078 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
1079 is longer than PATH_MAX.
1081 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
1082 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
1084 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
1085 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
1086 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
1087 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
1088 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
1090 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
1091 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
1093 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
1094 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
1096 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
1098 nocreat do not create the output file
1099 excl fail if the output file already exists
1100 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
1101 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
1103 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
1105 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
1106 direct use direct I/O for data
1107 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
1108 sync likewise, but also for metadata
1109 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
1110 nofollow do not follow symlinks
1111 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
1113 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
1115 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
1116 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
1119 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
1120 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
1121 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
1122 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
1123 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
1124 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
1126 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
1127 list of NUL-terminated file names.
1129 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
1132 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
1134 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
1136 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
1137 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
1139 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
1140 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
1141 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
1143 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
1144 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
1145 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
1147 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
1149 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
1150 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
1152 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
1153 for compatibility with bash.
1155 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
1157 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
1158 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
1159 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
1160 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
1162 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
1163 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
1165 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
1166 ls supports TABSIZE.
1167 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
1168 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
1169 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
1171 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
1174 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
1176 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
1177 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
1178 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
1179 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
1180 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
1181 an offset, not as a file name.
1183 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
1184 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
1186 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
1187 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
1189 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
1190 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
1192 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
1193 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
1194 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
1196 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
1197 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
1199 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
1200 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
1204 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
1206 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
1208 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
1212 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
1213 or more arguments between partitions.
1215 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
1216 holes in the destination.
1218 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
1219 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
1220 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
1221 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
1222 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
1223 terminates immediately.
1225 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
1227 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
1229 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
1230 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
1231 not the empty string.
1233 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
1234 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
1238 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
1239 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
1240 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
1243 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
1250 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
1254 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
1255 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
1257 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
1258 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
1260 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
1261 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
1262 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
1265 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
1269 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
1270 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
1272 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
1273 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
1275 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
1276 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
1277 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
1279 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
1281 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
1284 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
1286 ** Configuration option
1288 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
1289 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
1293 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
1294 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
1298 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1299 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1300 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1303 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1304 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1305 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1306 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1307 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1308 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1309 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1312 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1316 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1317 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1318 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1320 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1321 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1323 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1325 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1326 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1327 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1328 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1330 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1332 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1333 not just the ones that reference directories
1335 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1336 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1338 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1339 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1340 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1342 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1343 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1344 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1345 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1346 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1347 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1349 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1354 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1355 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1357 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1359 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1361 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1363 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1364 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1366 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1367 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1369 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1371 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1375 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1377 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1379 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1380 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1381 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1382 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1383 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1385 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1386 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1388 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1389 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1391 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1392 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1394 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1395 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1396 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1400 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1401 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1402 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1403 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1404 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1405 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1406 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1407 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1408 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1409 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1410 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1411 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1412 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1413 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1415 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1417 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1418 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1420 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1422 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1424 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1425 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1427 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1429 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1430 without a trailing newline.
1432 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1433 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1435 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1438 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1442 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1444 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1446 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1447 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1448 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1449 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1451 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1453 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1454 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1455 be printed without leading spaces.
1457 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1458 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1463 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1464 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1465 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1467 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1469 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1470 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1472 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1473 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1475 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1476 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1478 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1480 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1482 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1484 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1485 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1487 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1489 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1491 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1492 byte offsets are specified.
1495 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1498 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1501 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1502 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1503 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1504 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1505 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1506 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1507 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1508 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1509 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1510 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1511 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1512 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1513 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1514 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1515 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1516 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1517 directory where M has write access.
1518 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1519 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1520 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1523 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1524 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1525 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1526 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1527 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1528 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1529 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1530 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1531 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1532 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1533 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1534 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1535 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1536 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1537 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1538 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1539 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1540 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1541 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1542 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1543 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1544 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1545 appeared one additional time.
1547 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1548 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1549 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1550 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1553 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1554 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1555 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1556 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1557 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1558 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1559 if there were more than 338.
1561 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1562 - false --help now exits nonzero
1565 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1566 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1567 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1568 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1571 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1572 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1573 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1574 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1575 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1578 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1579 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1580 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1581 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1582 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1583 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1584 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1587 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1588 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1589 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1590 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1591 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1592 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1594 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1595 under certain unusual conditions
1596 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1597 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1600 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1601 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1602 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1603 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1604 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1605 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1606 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1607 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1608 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1609 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1610 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1611 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1612 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1613 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1614 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1615 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1618 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1619 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1622 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1623 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1624 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1625 involving hard-linked directories
1626 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1627 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1628 character-special and block files
1631 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1632 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1633 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1634 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1635 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1636 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1637 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1638 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1639 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1641 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1642 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1643 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1644 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1645 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1646 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1647 specified on the command line.
1648 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1649 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1650 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1651 the first file untouched.
1652 * readlink: new program
1653 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1654 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1655 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1656 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1657 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1658 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1661 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1662 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1663 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1664 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1665 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1666 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1667 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1668 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1669 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1670 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1671 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1672 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1674 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1675 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1676 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1678 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1679 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1680 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1681 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1682 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1683 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1684 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1685 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1688 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1689 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1692 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1693 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1694 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1695 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1696 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1697 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1698 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1701 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1702 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1704 ========================================================================
1705 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1706 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1709 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1711 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1712 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1713 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1714 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1715 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1716 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1717 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1718 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1719 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1720 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1721 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1722 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1724 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1725 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1726 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1727 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1729 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1732 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1734 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1735 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1736 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1737 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1738 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1739 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1740 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1743 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1744 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1745 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1746 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1747 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1748 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1749 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1750 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1751 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1752 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1753 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1754 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1755 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1756 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1757 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1758 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1760 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1761 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1763 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1764 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1765 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1766 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1767 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1768 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1770 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1771 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1772 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1773 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1774 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1775 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1776 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1778 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1779 the source files in the following example:
1780 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1781 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1782 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1783 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1784 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1785 links between source files with --preserve=links
1786 * cp accepts new options:
1787 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1788 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1789 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1790 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1791 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1792 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1793 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1794 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1795 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1797 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1798 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1799 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1800 even though it's older than dest.
1801 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1802 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1803 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1804 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1805 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1807 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1808 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1809 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1810 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1811 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1812 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1813 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1815 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1816 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1817 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1819 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1820 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1821 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1822 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1823 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1824 This is the default.
1826 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1827 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1828 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1829 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1830 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1832 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1835 ========================================================================
1836 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1837 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1840 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1841 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1843 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1844 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1845 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1846 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1847 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1849 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1850 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1851 that specifies a non-directory
1854 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1855 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1856 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1857 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1858 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1859 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1860 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1861 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1862 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1863 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1864 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1865 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1866 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1867 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1868 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1869 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1870 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1871 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1872 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1873 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1874 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1875 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1876 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1877 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1879 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1880 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1881 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1883 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1885 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1886 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1888 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1889 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1890 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1891 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1892 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1894 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1895 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1896 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1897 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1898 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1900 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1902 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1903 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1904 * still more portability fixes
1905 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1906 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1908 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1910 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1912 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1914 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1915 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1916 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1917 there is any time remaining
1918 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1920 ========================================================================
1921 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1922 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1924 This package began as the union of the following:
1925 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
1927 ========================================================================
1929 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
1932 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
1933 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
1934 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
1935 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
1936 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
1937 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.