1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9+ (????-??-??) [stable]
7 arch: equivalent to uname -m, not installed by default
8 But don't install this program on Solaris systems.
10 ** Changes in behavior
12 pr -F no longer suppresses the footer or the first two blank lines in
13 the header. This is for compatibility with BSD and POSIX.
15 tr now warns about an unescaped backslash at end of string.
16 The tr from coreutils-5.2.1 and earlier would fail for such usage,
17 and Solaris' tr ignores that final byte.
21 Add SELinux support (FIXME: add details here)
23 uniq accepts a new option: --zero-terminated (-z). As with the sort
24 option of the same name, this makes uniq consume and produce
25 NUL-terminated lines rather than newline-terminated lines.
27 wc no longer warns about character decoding errors in multibyte locales.
28 This means for example that "wc /bin/sh" now produces normal output
29 (though the word count will have no real meaning) rather than many
34 By default, "make install" no longer attempts to install (or even build) su.
35 To change that, use ./configure --enable-install-program=su.
36 If you also want to install the new "arch" program, do this:
37 ./configure --enable-install-program=arch,su.
39 You can inhibit the compilation and installation of selected programs
40 at configure time. For example, to avoid installing "hostname" and
41 "uptime", use ./configure --enable-no-install-program=hostname,uptime
42 Note: currently, "make check" passes, even when arch and su are not
43 built (that's the new default). However, if you inhibit the building
44 and installation of other programs, don't be surprised if some parts
47 ** Remove deprecated options
49 df no longer accepts the --kilobytes option.
50 du no longer accepts the --kilobytes or --megabytes options.
51 ls no longer accepts the --kilobytes option.
52 ptx longer accepts the --copyright option.
53 who no longer accepts -i or --idle.
57 cp no longer fails to write through a dangling symlink
58 [bug introduced in coreutils-6.7]. cp --parents no
59 longer mishandles symlinks to directories in file name
60 components in the source, e.g., "cp --parents symlink/a/b
61 d" no longer fails. Also, 'cp' no longer considers a
62 destination symlink to be the same as the referenced file when
63 copying links or making backups. For example, if SYM is a symlink
64 to FILE, "cp -l FILE SYM" now reports an error instead of silently
65 doing nothing. The behavior of 'cp' is now better documented when
66 the destination is a symlink.
68 "cp -i --update older newer" no longer prompts; same for mv
70 cut now diagnoses a range starting with zero (e.g., -f 0-2) as invalid;
71 before, it would treat it as if it started with 1 (-f 1-2).
73 "cut -f 2-0" now fails; before, it was equivalent to "cut -f 2-"
75 cut now diagnoses the '-' in "cut -f -" as an invalid range, rather
76 than interpreting it as the unlimited range, "1-".
78 ls -x DIR would sometimes output the wrong string in place of the
79 first entry. [introduced in coreutils-6.8]
81 ls --color would mistakenly color a dangling symlink as if it were
82 a regular symlink. This would happen only when the dangling symlink
83 was not a command-line argument and in a directory with d_type support.
84 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
86 ls --color, (with a custom LS_COLORS envvar value including the
87 ln=target attribute) would mistakenly output the string "target"
88 before the name of each symlink. [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
90 seq no longer mishandles obvious cases like "seq 0 0.000001 0.000003",
91 so workarounds like "seq 0 0.000001 0.0000031" are no longer needed.
93 Obsolete sort usage with an invalid ordering-option character, e.g.,
94 "env _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 sort +1x" no longer makes sort free an
95 invalid pointer [introduced in coreutils-6.5]
97 sorting very long lines (relative to the amount of available memory)
98 no longer provokes unaligned memory access
100 split --line-bytes=N (-C N) no longer creates an empty file
101 [this bug is present at least as far back as textutils-1.22 (Jan, 1997)]
103 tr -c no longer aborts when translating with Set2 larger than the
104 complement of Set1. [introduced with the original version, in 1992]
106 ** Improved robustness
108 stty no longer silently accepts certain invalid hex values
109 in its 35-colon commmand-line argument
112 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9 (2007-03-22) [stable]
116 cp -x (--one-file-system) would fail to set mount point permissions
118 The default block size and output format for df -P are now unaffected by
119 the DF_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE, and BLOCKSIZE environment variables. It
120 is still affected by POSIXLY_CORRECT, though.
122 Using pr -m -s (i.e. merging files, with TAB as the output separator)
123 no longer inserts extraneous spaces between output columns.
125 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.8 (2007-02-24) [not-unstable]
129 chgrp, chmod, and chown now honor the --preserve-root option.
130 Before, they would warn, yet continuing traversing and operating on /.
132 chmod no longer fails in an environment (e.g., a chroot) with openat
133 support but with insufficient /proc support.
135 "cp --parents F/G D" no longer creates a directory D/F when F is not
136 a directory (and F/G is therefore invalid).
138 "cp --preserve=mode" would create directories that briefly had
139 too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when copying a
140 directory with permissions 777 the destination directory might
141 temporarily be setgid on some file systems, which would allow other
142 users to create subfiles with the same group as the directory. Fix
143 similar problems with 'install' and 'mv'.
145 cut no longer dumps core for usage like "cut -f2- f1 f2" with two or
146 more file arguments. This was due to a double-free bug, introduced
149 dd bs= operands now silently override any later ibs= and obs=
150 operands, as POSIX and tradition require.
152 "ls -FRL" always follows symbolic links on Linux. Introduced in
155 A cross-partition "mv /etc/passwd ~" (by non-root) now prints
156 a reasonable diagnostic. Before, it would print this:
157 "mv: cannot remove `/etc/passwd': Not a directory".
159 pwd and "readlink -e ." no longer fail unnecessarily when a parent
160 directory is unreadable.
162 "rm -rf /etc/passwd" (run by non-root) now prints a diagnostic.
163 Before it would print nothing.
165 "rm --interactive=never F" no longer prompts for an unwritable F
169 sort's new --compress-program=PROG option specifies a compression
170 program to use when writing and reading temporary files.
171 This can help save both time and disk space when sorting large inputs.
173 sort accepts the new option -C, which acts like -c except no diagnostic
174 is printed. Its --check option now accepts an optional argument, and
175 --check=quiet and --check=silent are now aliases for -C, while
176 --check=diagnose-first is an alias for -c or plain --check.
179 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7 (2006-12-08) [stable]
183 When cp -p copied a file with special mode bits set, the same bits
184 were set on the copy even when ownership could not be preserved.
185 This could result in files that were setuid to the wrong user.
186 To fix this, special mode bits are now set in the copy only if its
187 ownership is successfully preserved. Similar problems were fixed
188 with mv when copying across file system boundaries. This problem
189 affects all versions of coreutils through 6.6.
191 cp --preserve=ownership would create output files that temporarily
192 had too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when
193 copying a file with group A and mode 644 into a group-B sticky
194 directory, the output file was briefly readable by group B.
195 Fix similar problems with cp options like -p that imply
196 --preserve=ownership, with install -d when combined with either -o
197 or -g, and with mv when copying across file system boundaries.
198 This bug affects coreutils 6.0 through 6.6.
200 du --one-file-system (-x) would skip subdirectories of any directory
201 listed as second or subsequent command line argument. This bug affects
202 coreutils-6.4, 6.5 and 6.6.
205 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.6 (2006-11-22) [stable]
209 ls would segfault (dereference a NULL pointer) for a file with a
210 nameless group or owner. This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.5.
212 A bug in the latest official m4/gettext.m4 (from gettext-0.15)
213 made configure fail to detect gettext support, due to the unusual
214 way in which coreutils uses AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
216 ** Improved robustness
218 Now, du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) honor a
219 trailing slash in the name of a symlink-to-directory even on
220 Solaris 9, by working around its buggy fstatat implementation.
223 * Major changes in release 6.5 (2006-11-19) [stable]
227 du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) would exit early
228 when encountering an inaccessible directory on a system with native
229 openat support (i.e., linux-2.6.16 or newer along with glibc-2.4
230 or newer). This bug was introduced with the switch to gnulib's
231 openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
233 "ln --backup f f" now produces a sensible diagnostic
237 rm accepts a new option: --one-file-system
240 * Major changes in release 6.4 (2006-10-22) [stable]
244 chgrp and chown would malfunction when invoked with both -R and -H and
245 with one or more of the following: --preserve-root, --verbose, --changes,
246 --from=o:g (chown only). This bug was introduced with the switch to
247 gnulib's openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
249 cp --backup dir1 dir2, would rename an existing dir2/dir1 to dir2/dir1~.
250 This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.0.
252 With --force (-f), rm no longer fails for ENOTDIR.
253 For example, "rm -f existing-non-directory/anything" now exits
254 successfully, ignoring the error about a nonexistent file.
257 * Major changes in release 6.3 (2006-09-30) [stable]
259 ** Improved robustness
261 pinky no longer segfaults on Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) due to a
262 buggy native getaddrinfo function.
264 rm works around a bug in Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) that would
265 sometimes keep it from removing all entries in a directory on an HFS+
266 or NFS-mounted partition.
268 sort would fail to handle very large input (around 40GB) on systems with a
269 mkstemp function that returns a file descriptor limited to 32-bit offsets.
273 chmod would fail unnecessarily in an unusual case: when an initially-
274 inaccessible argument is rendered accessible by chmod's action on a
275 preceding command line argument. This bug also affects chgrp, but
276 it is harder to demonstrate. It does not affect chown. The bug was
277 introduced with the switch from explicit recursion to the use of fts
278 in coreutils-5.1.0 (2003-10-15).
280 cp -i and mv -i occasionally neglected to prompt when the copy or move
281 action was bound to fail. This bug dates back to before fileutils-4.0.
283 With --verbose (-v), cp and mv would sometimes generate no output,
284 or neglect to report file removal.
286 For the "groups" command:
288 "groups" no longer prefixes the output with "user :" unless more
289 than one user is specified; this is for compatibility with BSD.
291 "groups user" now exits nonzero when it gets a write error.
293 "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
295 shuf would infloop, given 8KB or more of piped input
299 Versions of chmod, chown, chgrp, du, and rm (tools that use openat etc.)
300 compiled for Solaris 8 now also work when run on Solaris 10.
303 * Major changes in release 6.2 (2006-09-18) [stable candidate]
305 ** Changes in behavior
307 mkdir -p and install -d (or -D) now use a method that forks a child
308 process if the working directory is unreadable and a later argument
309 uses a relative file name. This avoids some race conditions, but it
310 means you may need to kill two processes to stop these programs.
312 rm now rejects attempts to remove the root directory, e.g., `rm -fr /'
313 now fails without removing anything. Likewise for any file name with
314 a final `./' or `../' component.
316 tail now ignores the -f option if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, no file
317 operand is given, and standard input is any FIFO; formerly it did
320 ** Infrastructure changes
322 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
323 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
324 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
325 infrastructure, it should cause no change in how the tools work.
329 cp --backup no longer fails when the last component of a source file
332 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
333 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
334 dirent.d_type support.
336 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
337 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
339 mv and "cp -r" no longer fail when invoked with two arguments
340 where the first one names a directory and the second name ends in
341 a slash and doesn't exist. E.g., "mv dir B/", for nonexistent B,
342 now succeeds, once more. This bug was introduced in coreutils-5.3.0.
345 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
347 ** Changes in behavior
349 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
353 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
354 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
358 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
359 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
360 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
362 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
363 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
365 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
366 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
368 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
370 ** Improved robustness
372 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
373 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
374 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
376 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
377 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
380 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
381 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
383 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
384 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
386 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
387 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
389 ** Changes in behavior
391 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
392 where the two are distinct.
394 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
395 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
396 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
397 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
398 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
399 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
400 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
401 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
402 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
403 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
404 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
405 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
406 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
407 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
408 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
409 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
410 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
412 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
413 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
414 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
416 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
417 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
418 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
419 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
422 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
423 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
427 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
428 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
429 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
430 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
432 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
433 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
434 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
436 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
437 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
438 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
439 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
440 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
443 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
444 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
446 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
447 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
448 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
449 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
451 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
452 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
453 successful and the output is easier to parse.
455 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
456 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
457 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
458 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
460 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
461 and sticky) with the -m option.
463 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
464 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
465 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
466 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
467 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
469 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
470 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
472 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
476 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
477 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
478 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
479 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
481 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
483 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
485 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
486 silently ignoring one of them.
488 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
489 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
490 containing this change was 5.92.
492 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
493 automatically newline terminated.
495 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
496 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
497 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
498 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
501 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
502 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
503 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
506 ** Scheduled for removal
508 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
509 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
511 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
512 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
513 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
514 command to unlink a directory.
516 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
517 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
518 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
519 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
523 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
524 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
525 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
526 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
527 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
528 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
532 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
533 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
535 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
537 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
538 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
539 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
541 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
542 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
545 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
546 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
548 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
549 list directories before files.
551 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
552 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
553 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
554 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
557 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
559 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
561 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
562 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
563 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
565 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
566 list of NUL-terminated file names.
570 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
571 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
572 usually printing nothing.
574 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
576 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
577 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
578 them with hard-linked directories.
580 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
581 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
582 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
584 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
585 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
586 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
588 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
591 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
592 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
594 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
595 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
597 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
598 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
600 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
601 all command-line arguments.
603 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
605 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
607 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
608 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
610 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
612 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
613 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
614 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
615 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
616 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
618 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
619 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
621 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
622 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
623 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
624 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
626 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
628 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
632 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
633 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
635 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
636 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
638 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
639 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
641 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
642 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
644 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
645 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
647 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
649 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
650 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
651 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
654 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
656 ** Build-related bug fixes
658 installing .mo files would fail
661 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
665 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
667 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
670 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
674 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
675 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
679 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
681 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
682 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
684 ** Deprecated options
686 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
687 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
689 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
693 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
695 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
696 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
697 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
698 conforming to older POSIX versions.
700 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
703 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
709 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
714 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
716 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
718 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
719 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
720 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
722 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
723 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
724 problematic usages. These include:
726 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
727 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
728 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
729 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
730 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
731 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
732 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
733 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
734 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
736 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
737 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
739 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
740 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
741 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
742 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
744 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
745 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
746 between binary and text files.
748 The following programs now always use text input/output:
752 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
756 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
757 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
760 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
762 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
763 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
765 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
766 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
767 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
769 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
771 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
773 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
774 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
775 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
779 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
781 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
782 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
784 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
785 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
786 blocks until F contains N blocks.
790 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
791 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
795 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
796 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
797 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
801 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
802 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
806 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
808 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
810 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
814 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
815 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
816 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
818 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
819 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
820 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
821 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
822 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
824 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
828 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
829 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
830 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
832 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
834 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
835 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
836 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
837 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
839 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
841 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
842 rather than silently wrapping around.
844 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
845 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
847 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
848 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
850 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
851 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
852 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
855 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
857 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
859 ** Improved robustness
861 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
862 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
863 no matter how large the result.
865 ** Improved portability
867 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
868 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
870 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
872 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
873 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
874 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
876 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
877 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
881 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
882 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
884 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
886 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8601 (-I)
887 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
888 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
889 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
891 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
892 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
894 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
895 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
896 categories if not specified by dircolors.
898 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
900 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
901 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
903 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
904 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
906 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
908 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
909 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
911 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
912 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
914 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
915 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
916 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
918 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
920 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
922 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
926 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
928 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
929 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
930 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
932 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
933 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
935 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
936 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
937 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
939 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
940 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
942 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
943 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
944 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
945 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
947 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
948 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
950 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
951 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
952 the file system does not support it.
954 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
956 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
957 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
959 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
961 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
962 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
964 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
965 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
966 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
967 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
969 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
970 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
973 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
974 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
975 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
976 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
978 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
979 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
980 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
981 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
983 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
984 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
986 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
988 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
989 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
990 reporting incorrect results.
994 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
995 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
997 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
1000 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
1002 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
1003 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
1005 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
1006 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
1008 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
1011 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
1012 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
1013 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
1014 the file name does not look like a page range.
1016 printf has several changes:
1018 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
1019 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
1021 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
1022 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
1023 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
1025 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
1026 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
1029 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
1030 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
1032 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
1033 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
1035 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
1037 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
1038 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
1040 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
1042 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
1044 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
1045 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
1046 when first encountering the directory.
1050 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
1051 output; POSIX requires this.
1053 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
1054 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
1056 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
1058 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
1059 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
1061 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
1062 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
1064 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
1065 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
1066 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
1067 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
1068 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
1069 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
1070 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
1072 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
1073 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
1074 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
1076 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
1077 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
1079 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
1081 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
1083 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
1084 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
1085 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
1086 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
1088 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
1092 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
1093 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
1094 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
1095 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
1096 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
1098 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
1099 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
1100 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
1102 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
1103 is longer than PATH_MAX.
1105 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
1106 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
1108 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
1109 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
1110 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
1111 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
1112 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
1114 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
1115 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
1117 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
1118 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
1120 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
1122 nocreat do not create the output file
1123 excl fail if the output file already exists
1124 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
1125 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
1127 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
1129 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
1130 direct use direct I/O for data
1131 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
1132 sync likewise, but also for metadata
1133 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
1134 nofollow do not follow symlinks
1135 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
1137 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
1139 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
1140 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
1143 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
1144 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
1145 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
1146 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
1147 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
1148 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
1150 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
1151 list of NUL-terminated file names.
1153 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
1156 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
1158 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
1160 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
1161 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
1163 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
1164 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
1165 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
1167 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
1168 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
1169 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
1171 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
1173 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
1174 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
1176 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
1177 for compatibility with bash.
1179 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
1181 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
1182 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
1183 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
1184 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
1186 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
1187 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
1189 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
1190 ls supports TABSIZE.
1191 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
1192 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
1193 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
1195 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
1198 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
1200 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
1201 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
1202 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
1203 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
1204 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
1205 an offset, not as a file name.
1207 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
1208 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
1210 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
1211 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
1213 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
1214 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
1216 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
1217 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
1218 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
1220 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
1221 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
1223 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
1224 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
1228 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
1230 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
1232 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
1236 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
1237 or more arguments between partitions.
1239 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
1240 holes in the destination.
1242 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
1243 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
1244 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
1245 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
1246 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
1247 terminates immediately.
1249 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
1251 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
1253 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
1254 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
1255 not the empty string.
1257 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
1258 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
1262 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
1263 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
1264 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
1267 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
1274 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
1278 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
1279 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
1281 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
1282 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
1284 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
1285 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
1286 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
1289 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
1293 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
1294 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
1296 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
1297 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
1299 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
1300 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
1301 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
1303 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
1305 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
1308 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
1310 ** Configuration option
1312 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
1313 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
1317 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
1318 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
1322 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1323 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1324 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1327 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1328 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1329 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1330 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1331 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1332 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1333 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1336 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1340 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1341 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1342 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1344 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1345 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1347 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1349 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1350 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1351 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1352 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1354 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1356 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1357 not just the ones that reference directories
1359 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1360 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1362 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1363 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1364 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1366 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1367 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1368 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1369 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1370 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1371 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1373 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1378 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1379 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1381 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1383 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1385 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1387 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1388 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1390 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1391 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1393 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1395 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1399 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1401 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1403 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1404 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1405 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1406 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1407 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1409 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1410 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1412 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1413 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1415 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1416 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1418 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1419 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1420 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1424 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1425 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1426 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1427 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1428 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1429 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1430 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1431 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1432 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1433 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1434 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1435 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1436 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1437 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1439 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1441 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1442 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1444 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1446 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1448 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1449 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1451 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1453 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1454 without a trailing newline.
1456 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1457 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1459 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1462 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1466 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1468 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1470 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1471 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1472 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1473 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1475 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1477 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1478 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1479 be printed without leading spaces.
1481 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1482 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1487 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1488 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1489 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1491 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1493 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1494 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1496 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1497 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1499 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1500 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1502 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1504 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1506 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1508 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1509 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1511 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1513 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1515 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1516 byte offsets are specified.
1519 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1522 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1525 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1526 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1527 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1528 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1529 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1530 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1531 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1532 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1533 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1534 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1535 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1536 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1537 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1538 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1539 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1540 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1541 directory where M has write access.
1542 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1543 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1544 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1547 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1548 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1549 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1550 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1551 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1552 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1553 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1554 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1555 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1556 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1557 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1558 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1559 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1560 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1561 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1562 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1563 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1564 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1565 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1566 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1567 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1568 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1569 appeared one additional time.
1571 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1572 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1573 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1574 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1577 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1578 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1579 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1580 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1581 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1582 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1583 if there were more than 338.
1585 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1586 - false --help now exits nonzero
1589 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1590 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1591 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1592 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1595 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1596 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1597 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1598 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1599 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1602 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1603 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1604 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1605 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1606 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1607 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1608 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1611 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1612 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1613 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1614 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1615 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1616 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1618 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1619 under certain unusual conditions
1620 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1621 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1624 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1625 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1626 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1627 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1628 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1629 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1630 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1631 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1632 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1633 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1634 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1635 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1636 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1637 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1638 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1639 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1642 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1643 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1646 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1647 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1648 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1649 involving hard-linked directories
1650 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1651 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1652 character-special and block files
1655 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1656 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1657 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1658 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1659 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1660 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1661 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1662 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1663 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1665 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1666 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1667 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1668 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1669 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1670 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1671 specified on the command line.
1672 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1673 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1674 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1675 the first file untouched.
1676 * readlink: new program
1677 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1678 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1679 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1680 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1681 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1682 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1685 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1686 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1687 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1688 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1689 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1690 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1691 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1692 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1693 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1694 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1695 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1696 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1698 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1699 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1700 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1702 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1703 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1704 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1705 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1706 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1707 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1708 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1709 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1712 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1713 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1716 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1717 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1718 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1719 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1720 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1721 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1722 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1725 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1726 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1728 ========================================================================
1729 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1730 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1733 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1735 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1736 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1737 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1738 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1739 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1740 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1741 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1742 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1743 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1744 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1745 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1746 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1748 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1749 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1750 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1751 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1753 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1756 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1758 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1759 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1760 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1761 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1762 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1763 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1764 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1767 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1768 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1769 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1770 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1771 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1772 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1773 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1774 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1775 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1776 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1777 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1778 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1779 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1780 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1781 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1782 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1784 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1785 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1787 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1788 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1789 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1790 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1791 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1792 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1794 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1795 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1796 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1797 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1798 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1799 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1800 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1802 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1803 the source files in the following example:
1804 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1805 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1806 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1807 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1808 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1809 links between source files with --preserve=links
1810 * cp accepts new options:
1811 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1812 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1813 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1814 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1815 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1816 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1817 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1818 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1819 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1821 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1822 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1823 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1824 even though it's older than dest.
1825 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1826 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1827 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1828 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1829 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1831 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1832 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1833 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1834 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1835 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1836 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1837 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1839 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1840 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1841 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1843 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1844 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1845 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1846 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1847 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1848 This is the default.
1850 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1851 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1852 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1853 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1854 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1856 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1859 ========================================================================
1860 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1861 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1864 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1865 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1867 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1868 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1869 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1870 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1871 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1873 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1874 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1875 that specifies a non-directory
1878 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1879 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1880 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1881 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1882 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1883 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1884 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1885 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1886 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1887 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1888 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1889 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1890 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1891 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1892 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1893 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1894 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1895 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1896 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1897 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1898 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1899 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1900 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1901 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1903 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1904 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1905 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1907 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1909 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1910 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1912 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1913 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1914 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1915 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1916 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1918 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1919 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1920 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1921 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1922 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1924 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1926 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1927 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1928 * still more portability fixes
1929 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1930 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1932 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1934 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1936 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1938 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1939 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1940 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1941 there is any time remaining
1942 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1944 ========================================================================
1945 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1946 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1948 This package began as the union of the following:
1949 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
1951 ========================================================================
1953 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
1956 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
1957 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
1958 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
1959 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
1960 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
1961 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.