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 mktemp: create a temporary file or directory (or names)
12 ** Programs no longer installed by default
16 ** Changes in behavior
18 pr -F no longer suppresses the footer or the first two blank lines in
19 the header. This is for compatibility with BSD and POSIX.
21 tr now warns about an unescaped backslash at end of string.
22 The tr from coreutils-5.2.1 and earlier would fail for such usage,
23 and Solaris' tr ignores that final byte.
27 Add SELinux support (FIXME: add details here)
29 uniq accepts a new option: --zero-terminated (-z). As with the sort
30 option of the same name, this makes uniq consume and produce
31 NUL-terminated lines rather than newline-terminated lines.
33 wc no longer warns about character decoding errors in multibyte locales.
34 This means for example that "wc /bin/sh" now produces normal output
35 (though the word count will have no real meaning) rather than many
40 By default, "make install" no longer attempts to install (or even build) su.
41 To change that, use ./configure --enable-install-program=su.
42 If you also want to install the new "arch" program, do this:
43 ./configure --enable-install-program=arch,su.
45 You can inhibit the compilation and installation of selected programs
46 at configure time. For example, to avoid installing "hostname" and
47 "uptime", use ./configure --enable-no-install-program=hostname,uptime
48 Note: currently, "make check" passes, even when arch and su are not
49 built (that's the new default). However, if you inhibit the building
50 and installation of other programs, don't be surprised if some parts
53 ** Remove deprecated options
55 df no longer accepts the --kilobytes option.
56 du no longer accepts the --kilobytes or --megabytes options.
57 ls no longer accepts the --kilobytes option.
58 ptx longer accepts the --copyright option.
59 who no longer accepts -i or --idle.
61 ** Improved robustness
63 ln -f can no longer silently clobber a just-created hard link.
64 In some cases, ln could be seen as being responsible for data loss.
65 For example, given directories a, b, c, and files a/f and b/f, we
66 should be able to do this safely: ln -f a/f b/f c && rm -f a/f b/f
67 However, before this change, ln would succeed, and thus cause the
68 loss of the contents of a/f.
70 stty no longer silently accepts certain invalid hex values
71 in its 35-colon commmand-line argument
75 chmod no longer ignores a dangling symlink. Now, chmod fails
76 with a diagnostic saying that it cannot operate on such a file.
77 [bug introduced in coreutils-5.1.0]
79 cp attempts to read a regular file, even if stat says it is empty.
80 Before, "cp /proc/cpuinfo c" would create an empty file when the kernel
81 reports stat.st_size == 0, while "cat /proc/cpuinfo > c" would "work",
82 and create a nonempty one. [bug introduced in coreutils-6.0]
84 cp no longer fails to write through a dangling symlink
85 [bug introduced in coreutils-6.7]. cp --parents no
86 longer mishandles symlinks to directories in file name
87 components in the source, e.g., "cp --parents symlink/a/b
88 d" no longer fails. Also, 'cp' no longer considers a
89 destination symlink to be the same as the referenced file when
90 copying links or making backups. For example, if SYM is a symlink
91 to FILE, "cp -l FILE SYM" now reports an error instead of silently
92 doing nothing. The behavior of 'cp' is now better documented when
93 the destination is a symlink.
95 "cp -i --update older newer" no longer prompts; same for mv
97 "cp -i" now detects read errors on standard input, and no longer consumes
98 too much seekable input; same for ln, install, mv, and rm.
100 cut now diagnoses a range starting with zero (e.g., -f 0-2) as invalid;
101 before, it would treat it as if it started with 1 (-f 1-2).
103 "cut -f 2-0" now fails; before, it was equivalent to "cut -f 2-"
105 cut now diagnoses the '-' in "cut -f -" as an invalid range, rather
106 than interpreting it as the unlimited range, "1-".
108 du -s now includes the size of any stat'able-but-inaccessible directory
111 du (without -s) prints whatever it knows of the size of an inaccessible
112 directory. Before, du would print nothing for such a directory.
114 ls -x DIR would sometimes output the wrong string in place of the
115 first entry. [introduced in coreutils-6.8]
117 ls --color would mistakenly color a dangling symlink as if it were
118 a regular symlink. This would happen only when the dangling symlink
119 was not a command-line argument and in a directory with d_type support.
120 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
122 ls --color, (with a custom LS_COLORS envvar value including the
123 ln=target attribute) would mistakenly output the string "target"
124 before the name of each symlink. [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
126 od's --skip (-j) option now works even when the kernel says that a
127 nonempty regular file has stat.st_size = 0. This happens at least
128 with files in /proc and linux-2.6.22.
130 "od -j L FILE" had a bug: when the number of bytes to skip, L, is exactly
131 the same as the length of FILE, od would skip *no* bytes. When the number
132 of bytes to skip is exactly the sum of the lengths of the first N files,
133 od would skip only the first N-1 files. [introduced in textutils-2.0.9]
135 seq no longer mishandles obvious cases like "seq 0 0.000001 0.000003",
136 so workarounds like "seq 0 0.000001 0.0000031" are no longer needed.
138 Obsolete sort usage with an invalid ordering-option character, e.g.,
139 "env _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 sort +1x" no longer makes sort free an
140 invalid pointer [introduced in coreutils-6.5]
142 sorting very long lines (relative to the amount of available memory)
143 no longer provokes unaligned memory access
145 split --line-bytes=N (-C N) no longer creates an empty file
146 [this bug is present at least as far back as textutils-1.22 (Jan, 1997)]
148 tr -c no longer aborts when translating with Set2 larger than the
149 complement of Set1. [introduced with the original version, in 1992]
152 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9 (2007-03-22) [stable]
156 cp -x (--one-file-system) would fail to set mount point permissions
158 The default block size and output format for df -P are now unaffected by
159 the DF_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE, and BLOCKSIZE environment variables. It
160 is still affected by POSIXLY_CORRECT, though.
162 Using pr -m -s (i.e. merging files, with TAB as the output separator)
163 no longer inserts extraneous spaces between output columns.
165 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.8 (2007-02-24) [not-unstable]
169 chgrp, chmod, and chown now honor the --preserve-root option.
170 Before, they would warn, yet continuing traversing and operating on /.
172 chmod no longer fails in an environment (e.g., a chroot) with openat
173 support but with insufficient /proc support.
175 "cp --parents F/G D" no longer creates a directory D/F when F is not
176 a directory (and F/G is therefore invalid).
178 "cp --preserve=mode" would create directories that briefly had
179 too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when copying a
180 directory with permissions 777 the destination directory might
181 temporarily be setgid on some file systems, which would allow other
182 users to create subfiles with the same group as the directory. Fix
183 similar problems with 'install' and 'mv'.
185 cut no longer dumps core for usage like "cut -f2- f1 f2" with two or
186 more file arguments. This was due to a double-free bug, introduced
189 dd bs= operands now silently override any later ibs= and obs=
190 operands, as POSIX and tradition require.
192 "ls -FRL" always follows symbolic links on Linux. Introduced in
195 A cross-partition "mv /etc/passwd ~" (by non-root) now prints
196 a reasonable diagnostic. Before, it would print this:
197 "mv: cannot remove `/etc/passwd': Not a directory".
199 pwd and "readlink -e ." no longer fail unnecessarily when a parent
200 directory is unreadable.
202 "rm -rf /etc/passwd" (run by non-root) now prints a diagnostic.
203 Before it would print nothing.
205 "rm --interactive=never F" no longer prompts for an unwritable F
207 "rm -rf D" would emit an misleading diagnostic when failing to
208 remove a symbolic link within the unwritable directory, D.
209 Introduced in coreutils-6.0. Similarly, when a cross-partition
210 "mv" fails because the source directory is unwritable, it now gives
211 a reasonable diagnostic. Before, this would print
212 $ mkdir /tmp/x; touch /tmp/x/y; chmod -w /tmp/x;
213 $ test $(stat -c %d /tmp/x) -ne $(stat -c %d .) && mv /tmp/x/y .
214 mv: cannot remove `/tmp/x/y': Not a directory
216 mv: cannot remove `/tmp/x/y': Permission denied.
220 sort's new --compress-program=PROG option specifies a compression
221 program to use when writing and reading temporary files.
222 This can help save both time and disk space when sorting large inputs.
224 sort accepts the new option -C, which acts like -c except no diagnostic
225 is printed. Its --check option now accepts an optional argument, and
226 --check=quiet and --check=silent are now aliases for -C, while
227 --check=diagnose-first is an alias for -c or plain --check.
230 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7 (2006-12-08) [stable]
234 When cp -p copied a file with special mode bits set, the same bits
235 were set on the copy even when ownership could not be preserved.
236 This could result in files that were setuid to the wrong user.
237 To fix this, special mode bits are now set in the copy only if its
238 ownership is successfully preserved. Similar problems were fixed
239 with mv when copying across file system boundaries. This problem
240 affects all versions of coreutils through 6.6.
242 cp --preserve=ownership would create output files that temporarily
243 had too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when
244 copying a file with group A and mode 644 into a group-B sticky
245 directory, the output file was briefly readable by group B.
246 Fix similar problems with cp options like -p that imply
247 --preserve=ownership, with install -d when combined with either -o
248 or -g, and with mv when copying across file system boundaries.
249 This bug affects all versions of coreutils through 6.6.
251 du --one-file-system (-x) would skip subdirectories of any directory
252 listed as second or subsequent command line argument. This bug affects
253 coreutils-6.4, 6.5 and 6.6.
256 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.6 (2006-11-22) [stable]
260 ls would segfault (dereference a NULL pointer) for a file with a
261 nameless group or owner. This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.5.
263 A bug in the latest official m4/gettext.m4 (from gettext-0.15)
264 made configure fail to detect gettext support, due to the unusual
265 way in which coreutils uses AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
267 ** Improved robustness
269 Now, du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) honor a
270 trailing slash in the name of a symlink-to-directory even on
271 Solaris 9, by working around its buggy fstatat implementation.
274 * Major changes in release 6.5 (2006-11-19) [stable]
278 du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) would exit early
279 when encountering an inaccessible directory on a system with native
280 openat support (i.e., linux-2.6.16 or newer along with glibc-2.4
281 or newer). This bug was introduced with the switch to gnulib's
282 openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
284 "ln --backup f f" now produces a sensible diagnostic
288 rm accepts a new option: --one-file-system
291 * Major changes in release 6.4 (2006-10-22) [stable]
295 chgrp and chown would malfunction when invoked with both -R and -H and
296 with one or more of the following: --preserve-root, --verbose, --changes,
297 --from=o:g (chown only). This bug was introduced with the switch to
298 gnulib's openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
300 cp --backup dir1 dir2, would rename an existing dir2/dir1 to dir2/dir1~.
301 This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.0.
303 With --force (-f), rm no longer fails for ENOTDIR.
304 For example, "rm -f existing-non-directory/anything" now exits
305 successfully, ignoring the error about a nonexistent file.
308 * Major changes in release 6.3 (2006-09-30) [stable]
310 ** Improved robustness
312 pinky no longer segfaults on Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) due to a
313 buggy native getaddrinfo function.
315 rm works around a bug in Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) that would
316 sometimes keep it from removing all entries in a directory on an HFS+
317 or NFS-mounted partition.
319 sort would fail to handle very large input (around 40GB) on systems with a
320 mkstemp function that returns a file descriptor limited to 32-bit offsets.
324 chmod would fail unnecessarily in an unusual case: when an initially-
325 inaccessible argument is rendered accessible by chmod's action on a
326 preceding command line argument. This bug also affects chgrp, but
327 it is harder to demonstrate. It does not affect chown. The bug was
328 introduced with the switch from explicit recursion to the use of fts
329 in coreutils-5.1.0 (2003-10-15).
331 cp -i and mv -i occasionally neglected to prompt when the copy or move
332 action was bound to fail. This bug dates back to before fileutils-4.0.
334 With --verbose (-v), cp and mv would sometimes generate no output,
335 or neglect to report file removal.
337 For the "groups" command:
339 "groups" no longer prefixes the output with "user :" unless more
340 than one user is specified; this is for compatibility with BSD.
342 "groups user" now exits nonzero when it gets a write error.
344 "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
346 shuf would infloop, given 8KB or more of piped input
350 Versions of chmod, chown, chgrp, du, and rm (tools that use openat etc.)
351 compiled for Solaris 8 now also work when run on Solaris 10.
354 * Major changes in release 6.2 (2006-09-18) [stable candidate]
356 ** Changes in behavior
358 mkdir -p and install -d (or -D) now use a method that forks a child
359 process if the working directory is unreadable and a later argument
360 uses a relative file name. This avoids some race conditions, but it
361 means you may need to kill two processes to stop these programs.
363 rm now rejects attempts to remove the root directory, e.g., `rm -fr /'
364 now fails without removing anything. Likewise for any file name with
365 a final `./' or `../' component.
367 tail now ignores the -f option if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, no file
368 operand is given, and standard input is any FIFO; formerly it did
371 ** Infrastructure changes
373 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
374 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
375 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
376 infrastructure, it should cause no change in how the tools work.
380 cp --backup no longer fails when the last component of a source file
383 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
384 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
385 dirent.d_type support.
387 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
388 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
390 mv and "cp -r" no longer fail when invoked with two arguments
391 where the first one names a directory and the second name ends in
392 a slash and doesn't exist. E.g., "mv dir B/", for nonexistent B,
393 now succeeds, once more. This bug was introduced in coreutils-5.3.0.
396 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
398 ** Changes in behavior
400 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
404 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
405 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
409 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
410 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
411 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
413 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
414 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
416 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
417 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
419 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
421 ** Improved robustness
423 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
424 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
425 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
427 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
428 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
431 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
432 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
434 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
435 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
437 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
438 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
440 ** Changes in behavior
442 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
443 where the two are distinct.
445 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
446 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
447 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
448 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
449 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
450 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
451 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
452 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
453 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
454 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
455 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
456 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
457 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
458 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
459 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
460 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
461 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
463 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
464 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
465 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
467 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
468 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
469 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
470 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
473 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
474 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
478 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
479 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
480 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
481 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
483 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
484 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
485 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
487 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
488 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
489 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
490 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
491 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
494 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
495 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
497 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
498 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
499 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
500 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
502 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
503 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
504 successful and the output is easier to parse.
506 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
507 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
508 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
509 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
511 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
512 and sticky) with the -m option.
514 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
515 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
516 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
517 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
518 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
520 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
521 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
523 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
527 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
528 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
529 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
530 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
532 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
534 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
536 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
537 silently ignoring one of them.
539 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
540 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
541 containing this change was 5.92.
543 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
544 automatically newline terminated.
546 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
547 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
548 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
549 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
552 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
553 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
554 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
557 ** Scheduled for removal
559 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
560 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
562 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
563 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
564 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
565 command to unlink a directory.
567 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
568 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
569 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
570 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
574 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
575 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
576 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
577 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
578 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
579 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
583 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
584 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
586 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
588 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
589 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
590 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
592 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
593 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
596 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
597 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
599 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
600 list directories before files.
602 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
603 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
604 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
605 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
608 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
610 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
612 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
613 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
614 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
616 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
617 list of NUL-terminated file names.
621 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
622 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
623 usually printing nothing.
625 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
627 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
628 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
629 them with hard-linked directories.
631 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
632 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
633 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
635 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
636 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
637 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
639 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
642 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
643 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
645 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
646 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
648 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
649 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
651 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
652 all command-line arguments.
654 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
656 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
658 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
659 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
661 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
663 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
664 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
665 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
666 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
667 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
669 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
670 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
672 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
673 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
674 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
675 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
677 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
679 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
683 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
684 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
686 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
687 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
689 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
690 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
692 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
693 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
695 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
696 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
698 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
700 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
701 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
702 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
705 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
707 ** Build-related bug fixes
709 installing .mo files would fail
712 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
716 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
718 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
721 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
725 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
726 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
730 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
732 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
733 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
735 ** Deprecated options
737 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
738 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
740 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
744 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
746 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
747 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
748 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
749 conforming to older POSIX versions.
751 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
754 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
760 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
765 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
767 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
769 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
770 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
771 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
773 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
774 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
775 problematic usages. These include:
777 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
778 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
779 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
780 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
781 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
782 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
783 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
784 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
785 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
787 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
788 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
790 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
791 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
792 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
793 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
795 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
796 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
797 between binary and text files.
799 The following programs now always use text input/output:
803 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
807 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
808 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
811 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
813 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
814 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
816 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
817 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
818 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
820 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
822 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
824 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
825 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
826 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
830 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
832 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
833 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
835 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
836 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
837 blocks until F contains N blocks.
841 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
842 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
846 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
847 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
848 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
852 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
853 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
857 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
859 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
861 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
865 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
866 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
867 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
869 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
870 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
871 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
872 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
873 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
875 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
879 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
880 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
881 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
883 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
885 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
886 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
887 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
888 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
890 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
892 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
893 rather than silently wrapping around.
895 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
896 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
898 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
899 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
901 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
902 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
903 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
906 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
908 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
910 ** Improved robustness
912 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
913 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
914 no matter how large the result.
916 ** Improved portability
918 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
919 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
921 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
923 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
924 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
925 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
927 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
928 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
932 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
933 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
935 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
937 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8601 (-I)
938 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
939 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
940 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
942 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
943 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
945 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
946 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
947 categories if not specified by dircolors.
949 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
951 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
952 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
954 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
955 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
957 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
959 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
960 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
962 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
963 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
965 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
966 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
967 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
969 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
971 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
973 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
977 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
979 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
980 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
981 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
983 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
984 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
986 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
987 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
988 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
990 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
991 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
993 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
994 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
995 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
996 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
998 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
999 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
1001 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
1002 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
1003 the file system does not support it.
1005 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
1007 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
1008 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
1010 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
1012 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
1013 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
1015 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
1016 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
1017 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
1018 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
1020 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
1021 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
1024 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
1025 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
1026 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
1027 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
1029 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
1030 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
1031 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
1032 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
1034 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
1035 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
1037 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
1039 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
1040 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
1041 reporting incorrect results.
1045 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
1046 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
1048 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
1051 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
1053 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
1054 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
1056 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
1057 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
1059 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
1062 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
1063 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
1064 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
1065 the file name does not look like a page range.
1067 printf has several changes:
1069 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
1070 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
1072 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
1073 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
1074 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
1076 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
1077 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
1080 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
1081 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
1083 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
1084 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
1086 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
1088 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
1089 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
1091 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
1093 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
1095 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
1096 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
1097 when first encountering the directory.
1101 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
1102 output; POSIX requires this.
1104 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
1105 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
1107 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
1109 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
1110 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
1112 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
1113 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
1115 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
1116 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
1117 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
1118 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
1119 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
1120 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
1121 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
1123 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
1124 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
1125 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
1127 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
1128 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
1130 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
1132 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
1134 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
1135 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
1136 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
1137 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
1139 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
1143 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
1144 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
1145 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
1146 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
1147 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
1149 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
1150 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
1151 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
1153 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
1154 is longer than PATH_MAX.
1156 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
1157 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
1159 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
1160 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
1161 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
1162 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
1163 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
1165 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
1166 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
1168 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
1169 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
1171 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
1173 nocreat do not create the output file
1174 excl fail if the output file already exists
1175 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
1176 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
1178 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
1180 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
1181 direct use direct I/O for data
1182 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
1183 sync likewise, but also for metadata
1184 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
1185 nofollow do not follow symlinks
1186 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
1188 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
1190 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
1191 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
1194 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
1195 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
1196 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
1197 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
1198 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
1199 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
1201 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
1202 list of NUL-terminated file names.
1204 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
1207 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
1209 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
1211 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
1212 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
1214 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
1215 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
1216 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
1218 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
1219 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
1220 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
1222 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
1224 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
1225 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
1227 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
1228 for compatibility with bash.
1230 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
1232 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
1233 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
1234 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
1235 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
1237 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
1238 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
1240 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
1241 ls supports TABSIZE.
1242 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
1243 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
1244 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
1246 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
1249 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
1251 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
1252 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
1253 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
1254 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
1255 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
1256 an offset, not as a file name.
1258 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
1259 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
1261 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
1262 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
1264 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
1265 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
1267 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
1268 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
1269 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
1271 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
1272 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
1274 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
1275 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
1279 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
1281 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
1283 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
1287 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
1288 or more arguments between partitions.
1290 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
1291 holes in the destination.
1293 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
1294 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
1295 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
1296 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
1297 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
1298 terminates immediately.
1300 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
1302 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
1304 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
1305 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
1306 not the empty string.
1308 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
1309 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
1313 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
1314 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
1315 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
1318 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
1325 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
1329 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
1330 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
1332 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
1333 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
1335 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
1336 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
1337 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
1340 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
1344 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
1345 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
1347 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
1348 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
1350 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
1351 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
1352 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
1354 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
1356 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
1359 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
1361 ** Configuration option
1363 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
1364 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
1368 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
1369 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
1373 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1374 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1375 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1378 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1379 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1380 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1381 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1382 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1383 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1384 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1387 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1391 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1392 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1393 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1395 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1396 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1398 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1400 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1401 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1402 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1403 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1405 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1407 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1408 not just the ones that reference directories
1410 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1411 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1413 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1414 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1415 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1417 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1418 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1419 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1420 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1421 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1422 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1424 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1429 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1430 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1432 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1434 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1436 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1438 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1439 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1441 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1442 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1444 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1446 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1450 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1452 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1454 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1455 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1456 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1457 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1458 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1460 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1461 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1463 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1464 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1466 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1467 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1469 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1470 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1471 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1475 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1476 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1477 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1478 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1479 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1480 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1481 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1482 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1483 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1484 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1485 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1486 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1487 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1488 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1490 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1492 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1493 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1495 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1497 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1499 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1500 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1502 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1504 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1505 without a trailing newline.
1507 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1508 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1510 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1513 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1517 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1519 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1521 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1522 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1523 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1524 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1526 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1528 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1529 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1530 be printed without leading spaces.
1532 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1533 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1538 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1539 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1540 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1542 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1544 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1545 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1547 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1548 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1550 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1551 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1553 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1555 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1557 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1559 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1560 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1562 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1564 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1566 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1567 byte offsets are specified.
1570 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1573 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1576 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1577 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1578 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1579 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1580 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1581 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1582 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1583 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1584 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1585 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1586 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1587 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1588 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1589 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1590 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1591 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1592 directory where M has write access.
1593 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1594 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1595 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1598 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1599 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1600 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1601 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1602 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1603 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1604 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1605 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1606 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1607 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1608 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1609 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1610 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1611 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1612 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1613 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1614 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1615 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1616 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1617 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1618 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1619 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1620 appeared one additional time.
1622 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1623 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1624 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1625 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1628 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1629 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1630 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1631 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1632 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1633 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1634 if there were more than 338.
1636 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1637 - false --help now exits nonzero
1640 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1641 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1642 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1643 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1646 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1647 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1648 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1649 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1650 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1653 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1654 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1655 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1656 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1657 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1658 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1659 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1662 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1663 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1664 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1665 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1666 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1667 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1669 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1670 under certain unusual conditions
1671 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1672 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1675 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1676 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1677 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1678 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1679 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1680 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1681 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1682 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1683 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1684 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1685 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1686 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1687 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1688 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1689 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1690 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1693 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1694 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1697 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1698 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1699 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1700 involving hard-linked directories
1701 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1702 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1703 character-special and block files
1706 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1707 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1708 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1709 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1710 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1711 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1712 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1713 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1714 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1716 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1717 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1718 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1719 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1720 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1721 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1722 specified on the command line.
1723 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1724 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1725 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1726 the first file untouched.
1727 * readlink: new program
1728 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1729 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1730 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1731 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1732 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1733 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1736 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1737 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1738 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1739 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1740 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1741 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1742 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1743 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1744 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1745 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1746 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1747 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1749 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1750 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1751 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1753 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1754 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1755 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1756 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1757 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1758 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1759 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1760 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1763 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1764 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1767 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1768 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1769 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1770 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1771 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1772 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1773 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1776 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1777 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1779 ========================================================================
1780 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1781 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1784 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1786 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1787 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1788 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1789 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1790 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1791 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1792 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1793 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1794 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1795 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1796 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1797 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1799 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1800 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1801 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1802 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1804 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1807 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1809 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1810 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1811 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1812 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1813 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1814 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1815 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1818 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1819 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1820 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1821 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1822 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1823 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1824 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1825 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1826 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1827 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1828 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1829 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1830 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1831 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1832 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1833 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1835 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1836 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1838 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1839 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1840 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1841 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1842 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1843 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1845 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1846 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1847 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1848 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1849 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1850 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1851 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1853 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1854 the source files in the following example:
1855 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1856 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1857 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1858 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1859 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1860 links between source files with --preserve=links
1861 * cp accepts new options:
1862 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1863 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1864 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1865 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1866 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1867 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1868 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1869 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1870 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1872 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1873 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1874 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1875 even though it's older than dest.
1876 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1877 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1878 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1879 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1880 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1882 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1883 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1884 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1885 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1886 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1887 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1888 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1890 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1891 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1892 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1894 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1895 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1896 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1897 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1898 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1899 This is the default.
1901 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1902 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1903 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1904 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1905 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1907 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1910 ========================================================================
1911 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1912 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1915 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1916 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1918 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1919 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1920 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1921 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1922 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1924 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1925 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1926 that specifies a non-directory
1929 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1930 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1931 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1932 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1933 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1934 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1935 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1936 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1937 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1938 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1939 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1940 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1941 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1942 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1943 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1944 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1945 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1946 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1947 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1948 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1949 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1950 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1951 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1952 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1954 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1955 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1956 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1958 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1960 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1961 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1963 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1964 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1965 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1966 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1967 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1969 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1970 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1971 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1972 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1973 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1975 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1977 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1978 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1979 * still more portability fixes
1980 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1981 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1983 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1985 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1987 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1989 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1990 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1991 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1992 there is any time remaining
1993 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1995 ========================================================================
1996 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1997 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1999 This package began as the union of the following:
2000 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
2002 ========================================================================
2004 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
2007 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
2008 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
2009 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
2010 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
2011 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
2012 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.