1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9+ (????-??-??) [stable]
7 Add SELinux support (FIXME: add details here)
9 uniq accepts a new option: --zero-terminated (-z). As with the sort
10 option of the same name, this makes uniq consume and produce
11 NUL-terminated lines rather than newline-terminated lines.
15 cut now diagnoses a range starting with zero (e.g., -f 0-2) as invalid;
16 before, it would treat it as if it started with 1 (-f 1-2).
18 "cut -f 2-0" now fails; before, it was equivalent to "cut -f 2-"
20 cut now diagnoses the '-' in "cut -f -" as an invalid range, rather
21 than interpreting it as the unlimited range, "1-".
23 ls -x DIR would sometimes output the wrong string in place of the
24 first entry. [introduced in coreutils-6.8]
26 ls --color would mistakenly color a dangling symlink as if it were
27 a regular symlink. This would happen only when the dangling symlink
28 was not a command-line argument and in a directory with d_type support.
29 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
31 ls --color, (with a custom LS_COLORS envvar value including the
32 ln=target attribute) would mistakenly output the string "target"
33 before the name of each symlink. [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
35 split --line-bytes=N (-C N) no longer creates an empty file
36 [this bug is present at least as far back as textutils-1.22 (Jan, 1997)]
38 tr -c no longer aborts when translating with Set2 larger than the
39 complement of Set1. [introduced with the original version, in 1992]
41 ** Improved robustness
43 stty no longer silently accepts certain invalid hex values
44 in its 35-colon commmand-line argument
47 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9 (2007-03-22) [stable]
51 cp -x (--one-file-system) would fail to set mount point permissions
53 The default block size and output format for df -P are now unaffected by
54 the DF_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE, and BLOCKSIZE environment variables. It
55 is still affected by POSIXLY_CORRECT, though.
57 Using pr -m -s (i.e. merging files, with TAB as the output separator)
58 no longer inserts extraneous spaces between output columns.
61 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.8 (2007-02-24) [not-unstable]
65 chgrp, chmod, and chown now honor the --preserve-root option.
66 Before, they would warn, yet continuing traversing and operating on /.
68 chmod no longer fails in an environment (e.g., a chroot) with openat
69 support but with insufficient /proc support.
71 "cp --parents F/G D" no longer creates a directory D/F when F is not
72 a directory (and F/G is therefore invalid).
74 "cp --preserve=mode" would create directories that briefly had
75 too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when copying a
76 directory with permissions 777 the destination directory might
77 temporarily be setgid on some file systems, which would allow other
78 users to create subfiles with the same group as the directory. Fix
79 similar problems with 'install' and 'mv'.
81 cut no longer dumps core for usage like "cut -f2- f1 f2" with two or
82 more file arguments. This was due to a double-free bug, introduced
85 dd bs= operands now silently override any later ibs= and obs=
86 operands, as POSIX and tradition require.
88 "ls -FRL" always follows symbolic links on Linux. Introduced in
91 A cross-partition "mv /etc/passwd ~" (by non-root) now prints
92 a reasonable diagnostic. Before, it would print this:
93 "mv: cannot remove `/etc/passwd': Not a directory".
95 pwd and "readlink -e ." no longer fail unnecessarily when a parent
96 directory is unreadable.
98 "rm -rf /etc/passwd" (run by non-root) now prints a diagnostic.
99 Before it would print nothing.
101 "rm --interactive=never F" no longer prompts for an unwritable F
105 sort's new --compress-program=PROG option specifies a compression
106 program to use when writing and reading temporary files.
107 This can help save both time and disk space when sorting large inputs.
109 sort accepts the new option -C, which acts like -c except no diagnostic
110 is printed. Its --check option now accepts an optional argument, and
111 --check=quiet and --check=silent are now aliases for -C, while
112 --check=diagnose-first is an alias for -c or plain --check.
115 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7 (2006-12-08) [stable]
119 When cp -p copied a file with special mode bits set, the same bits
120 were set on the copy even when ownership could not be preserved.
121 This could result in files that were setuid to the wrong user.
122 To fix this, special mode bits are now set in the copy only if its
123 ownership is successfully preserved. Similar problems were fixed
124 with mv when copying across file system boundaries. This problem
125 affects all versions of coreutils through 6.6.
127 cp --preserve=ownership would create output files that temporarily
128 had too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when
129 copying a file with group A and mode 644 into a group-B sticky
130 directory, the output file was briefly readable by group B.
131 Fix similar problems with cp options like -p that imply
132 --preserve=ownership, with install -d when combined with either -o
133 or -g, and with mv when copying across file system boundaries.
134 This bug affects coreutils 6.0 through 6.6.
136 du --one-file-system (-x) would skip subdirectories of any directory
137 listed as second or subsequent command line argument. This bug affects
138 coreutils-6.4, 6.5 and 6.6.
141 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.6 (2006-11-22) [stable]
145 ls would segfault (dereference a NULL pointer) for a file with a
146 nameless group or owner. This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.5.
148 A bug in the latest official m4/gettext.m4 (from gettext-0.15)
149 made configure fail to detect gettext support, due to the unusual
150 way in which coreutils uses AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
152 ** Improved robustness
154 Now, du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) honor a
155 trailing slash in the name of a symlink-to-directory even on
156 Solaris 9, by working around its buggy fstatat implementation.
159 * Major changes in release 6.5 (2006-11-19) [stable]
163 du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) would exit early
164 when encountering an inaccessible directory on a system with native
165 openat support (i.e., linux-2.6.16 or newer along with glibc-2.4
166 or newer). This bug was introduced with the switch to gnulib's
167 openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
169 "ln --backup f f" now produces a sensible diagnostic
173 rm accepts a new option: --one-file-system
176 * Major changes in release 6.4 (2006-10-22) [stable]
180 chgrp and chown would malfunction when invoked with both -R and -H and
181 with one or more of the following: --preserve-root, --verbose, --changes,
182 --from=o:g (chown only). This bug was introduced with the switch to
183 gnulib's openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
185 cp --backup dir1 dir2, would rename an existing dir2/dir1 to dir2/dir1~.
186 This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.0.
188 With --force (-f), rm no longer fails for ENOTDIR.
189 For example, "rm -f existing-non-directory/anything" now exits
190 successfully, ignoring the error about a nonexistent file.
193 * Major changes in release 6.3 (2006-09-30) [stable]
195 ** Improved robustness
197 pinky no longer segfaults on Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) due to a
198 buggy native getaddrinfo function.
200 rm works around a bug in Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) that would
201 sometimes keep it from removing all entries in a directory on an HFS+
202 or NFS-mounted partition.
204 sort would fail to handle very large input (around 40GB) on systems with a
205 mkstemp function that returns a file descriptor limited to 32-bit offsets.
209 chmod would fail unnecessarily in an unusual case: when an initially-
210 inaccessible argument is rendered accessible by chmod's action on a
211 preceding command line argument. This bug also affects chgrp, but
212 it is harder to demonstrate. It does not affect chown. The bug was
213 introduced with the switch from explicit recursion to the use of fts
214 in coreutils-5.1.0 (2003-10-15).
216 cp -i and mv -i occasionally neglected to prompt when the copy or move
217 action was bound to fail. This bug dates back to before fileutils-4.0.
219 With --verbose (-v), cp and mv would sometimes generate no output,
220 or neglect to report file removal.
222 For the "groups" command:
224 "groups" no longer prefixes the output with "user :" unless more
225 than one user is specified; this is for compatibility with BSD.
227 "groups user" now exits nonzero when it gets a write error.
229 "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
231 shuf would infloop, given 8KB or more of piped input
235 Versions of chmod, chown, chgrp, du, and rm (tools that use openat etc.)
236 compiled for Solaris 8 now also work when run on Solaris 10.
239 * Major changes in release 6.2 (2006-09-18) [stable candidate]
241 ** Changes in behavior
243 mkdir -p and install -d (or -D) now use a method that forks a child
244 process if the working directory is unreadable and a later argument
245 uses a relative file name. This avoids some race conditions, but it
246 means you may need to kill two processes to stop these programs.
248 rm now rejects attempts to remove the root directory, e.g., `rm -fr /'
249 now fails without removing anything. Likewise for any file name with
250 a final `./' or `../' component.
252 tail now ignores the -f option if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, no file
253 operand is given, and standard input is any FIFO; formerly it did
256 ** Infrastructure changes
258 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
259 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
260 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
261 infrastructure, it should cause no change in how the tools work.
265 cp --backup no longer fails when the last component of a source file
268 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
269 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
270 dirent.d_type support.
272 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
273 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
275 mv and "cp -r" no longer fail when invoked with two arguments
276 where the first one names a directory and the second name ends in
277 a slash and doesn't exist. E.g., "mv dir B/", for nonexistent B,
278 now succeeds, once more. This bug was introduced in coreutils-5.3.0.
281 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
283 ** Changes in behavior
285 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
289 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
290 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
294 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
295 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
296 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
298 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
299 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
301 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
302 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
304 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
306 ** Improved robustness
308 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
309 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
310 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
312 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
313 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
316 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
317 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
319 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
320 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
322 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
323 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
325 ** Changes in behavior
327 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
328 where the two are distinct.
330 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
331 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
332 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
333 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
334 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
335 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
336 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
337 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
338 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
339 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
340 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
341 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
342 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
343 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
344 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
345 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
346 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
348 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
349 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
350 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
352 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
353 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
354 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
355 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
358 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
359 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
363 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
364 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
365 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
366 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
368 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
369 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
370 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
372 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
373 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
374 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
375 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
376 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
379 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
380 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
382 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
383 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
384 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
385 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
387 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
388 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
389 successful and the output is easier to parse.
391 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
392 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
393 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
394 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
396 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
397 and sticky) with the -m option.
399 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
400 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
401 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
402 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
403 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
405 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
406 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
408 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
412 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
413 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
414 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
415 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
417 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
419 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
421 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
422 silently ignoring one of them.
424 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
425 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
426 containing this change was 5.92.
428 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
429 automatically newline terminated.
431 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
432 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
433 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
434 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
437 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
438 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
439 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
442 ** Scheduled for removal
444 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
445 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
447 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
448 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
449 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
450 command to unlink a directory.
452 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
453 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
454 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
455 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
459 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
460 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
461 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
462 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
463 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
464 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
468 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
469 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
471 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
473 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
474 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
475 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
477 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
478 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
481 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
482 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
484 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
485 list directories before files.
487 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
488 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
489 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
490 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
493 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
495 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
497 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
498 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
499 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
501 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
502 list of NUL-terminated file names.
506 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
507 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
508 usually printing nothing.
510 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
512 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
513 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
514 them with hard-linked directories.
516 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
517 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
518 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
520 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
521 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
522 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
524 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
527 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
528 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
530 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
531 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
533 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
534 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
536 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
537 all command-line arguments.
539 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
541 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
543 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
544 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
546 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
548 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
549 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
550 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
551 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
552 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
554 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
555 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
557 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
558 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
559 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
560 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
562 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
564 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
568 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
569 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
571 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
572 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
574 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
575 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
577 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
578 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
580 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
581 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
583 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
585 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
586 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
587 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
590 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
592 ** Build-related bug fixes
594 installing .mo files would fail
597 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
601 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
603 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
606 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
610 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
611 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
615 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
617 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
618 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
620 ** Deprecated options
622 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
623 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
625 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
629 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
631 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
632 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
633 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
634 conforming to older POSIX versions.
636 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
639 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
645 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
650 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
652 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
654 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
655 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
656 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
658 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
659 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
660 problematic usages. These include:
662 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
663 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
664 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
665 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
666 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
667 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
668 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
669 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
670 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
672 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
673 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
675 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
676 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
677 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
678 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
680 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
681 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
682 between binary and text files.
684 The following programs now always use text input/output:
688 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
692 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
693 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
696 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
698 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
699 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
701 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
702 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
703 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
705 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
707 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
709 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
710 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
711 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
715 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
717 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
718 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
720 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
721 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
722 blocks until F contains N blocks.
726 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
727 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
731 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
732 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
733 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
737 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
738 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
742 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
744 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
746 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
750 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
751 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
752 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
754 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
755 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
756 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
757 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
758 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
760 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
764 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
765 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
766 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
768 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
770 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
771 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
772 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
773 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
775 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
777 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
778 rather than silently wrapping around.
780 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
781 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
783 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
784 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
786 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
787 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
788 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
791 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
793 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
795 ** Improved robustness
797 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
798 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
799 no matter how large the result.
801 ** Improved portability
803 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
804 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
806 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
808 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
809 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
810 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
812 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
813 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
817 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
818 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
820 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
822 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8601 (-I)
823 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
824 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
825 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
827 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
828 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
830 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
831 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
832 categories if not specified by dircolors.
834 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
836 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
837 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
839 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
840 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
842 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
844 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
845 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
847 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
848 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
850 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
851 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
852 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
854 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
856 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
858 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
862 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
864 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
865 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
866 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
868 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
869 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
871 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
872 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
873 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
875 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
876 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
878 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
879 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
880 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
881 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
883 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
884 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
886 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
887 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
888 the file system does not support it.
890 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
892 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
893 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
895 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
897 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
898 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
900 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
901 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
902 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
903 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
905 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
906 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
909 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
910 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
911 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
912 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
914 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
915 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
916 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
917 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
919 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
920 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
922 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
924 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
925 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
926 reporting incorrect results.
930 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
931 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
933 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
936 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
938 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
939 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
941 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
942 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
944 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
947 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
948 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
949 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
950 the file name does not look like a page range.
952 printf has several changes:
954 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
955 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
957 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
958 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
959 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
961 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
962 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
965 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
966 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
968 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
969 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
971 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
973 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
974 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
976 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
978 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
980 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
981 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
982 when first encountering the directory.
986 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
987 output; POSIX requires this.
989 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
990 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
992 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
994 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
995 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
997 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
998 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
1000 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
1001 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
1002 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
1003 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
1004 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
1005 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
1006 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
1008 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
1009 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
1010 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
1012 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
1013 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
1015 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
1017 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
1019 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
1020 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
1021 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
1022 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
1024 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
1028 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
1029 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
1030 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
1031 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
1032 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
1034 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
1035 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
1036 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
1038 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
1039 is longer than PATH_MAX.
1041 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
1042 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
1044 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
1045 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
1046 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
1047 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
1048 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
1050 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
1051 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
1053 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
1054 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
1056 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
1058 nocreat do not create the output file
1059 excl fail if the output file already exists
1060 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
1061 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
1063 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
1065 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
1066 direct use direct I/O for data
1067 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
1068 sync likewise, but also for metadata
1069 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
1070 nofollow do not follow symlinks
1071 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
1073 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
1075 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
1076 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
1079 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
1080 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
1081 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
1082 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
1083 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
1084 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
1086 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
1087 list of NUL-terminated file names.
1089 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
1092 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
1094 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
1096 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
1097 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
1099 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
1100 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
1101 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
1103 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
1104 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
1105 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
1107 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
1109 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
1110 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
1112 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
1113 for compatibility with bash.
1115 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
1117 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
1118 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
1119 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
1120 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
1122 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
1123 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
1125 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
1126 ls supports TABSIZE.
1127 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
1128 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
1129 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
1131 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
1134 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
1136 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
1137 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
1138 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
1139 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
1140 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
1141 an offset, not as a file name.
1143 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
1144 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
1146 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
1147 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
1149 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
1150 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
1152 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
1153 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
1154 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
1156 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
1157 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
1159 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
1160 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
1164 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
1166 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
1168 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
1172 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
1173 or more arguments between partitions.
1175 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
1176 holes in the destination.
1178 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
1179 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
1180 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
1181 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
1182 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
1183 terminates immediately.
1185 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
1187 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
1189 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
1190 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
1191 not the empty string.
1193 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
1194 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
1198 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
1199 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
1200 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
1203 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
1210 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
1214 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
1215 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
1217 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
1218 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
1220 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
1221 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
1222 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
1225 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
1229 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
1230 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
1232 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
1233 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
1235 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
1236 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
1237 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
1239 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
1241 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
1244 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
1246 ** Configuration option
1248 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
1249 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
1253 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
1254 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
1258 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1259 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1260 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1263 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1264 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1265 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1266 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1267 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1268 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1269 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1272 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1276 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1277 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1278 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1280 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1281 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1283 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1285 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1286 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1287 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1288 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1290 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1292 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1293 not just the ones that reference directories
1295 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1296 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1298 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1299 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1300 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1302 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1303 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1304 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1305 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1306 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1307 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1309 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1314 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1315 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1317 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1319 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1321 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1323 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1324 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1326 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1327 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1329 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1331 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1335 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1337 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1339 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1340 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1341 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1342 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1343 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1345 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1346 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1348 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1349 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1351 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1352 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1354 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1355 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1356 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1360 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1361 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1362 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1363 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1364 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1365 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1366 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1367 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1368 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1369 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1370 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1371 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1372 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1373 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1375 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1377 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1378 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1380 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1382 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1384 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1385 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1387 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1389 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1390 without a trailing newline.
1392 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1393 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1395 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1398 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1402 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1404 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1406 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1407 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1408 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1409 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1411 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1413 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1414 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1415 be printed without leading spaces.
1417 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1418 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1423 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1424 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1425 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1427 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1429 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1430 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1432 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1433 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1435 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1436 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1438 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1440 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1442 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1444 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1445 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1447 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1449 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1451 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1452 byte offsets are specified.
1455 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1458 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1461 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1462 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1463 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1464 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1465 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1466 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1467 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1468 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1469 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1470 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1471 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1472 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1473 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1474 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1475 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1476 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1477 directory where M has write access.
1478 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1479 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1480 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1483 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1484 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1485 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1486 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1487 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1488 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1489 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1490 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1491 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1492 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1493 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1494 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1495 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1496 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1497 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1498 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1499 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1500 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1501 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1502 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1503 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1504 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1505 appeared one additional time.
1507 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1508 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1509 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1510 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1513 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1514 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1515 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1516 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1517 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1518 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1519 if there were more than 338.
1521 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1522 - false --help now exits nonzero
1525 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1526 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1527 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1528 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1531 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1532 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1533 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1534 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1535 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1538 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1539 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1540 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1541 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1542 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1543 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1544 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1547 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1548 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1549 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1550 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1551 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1552 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1554 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1555 under certain unusual conditions
1556 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1557 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1560 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1561 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1562 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1563 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1564 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1565 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1566 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1567 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1568 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1569 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1570 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1571 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1572 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1573 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1574 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1575 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1578 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1579 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1582 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1583 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1584 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1585 involving hard-linked directories
1586 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1587 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1588 character-special and block files
1591 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1592 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1593 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1594 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1595 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1596 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1597 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1598 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1599 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1601 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1602 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1603 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1604 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1605 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1606 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1607 specified on the command line.
1608 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1609 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1610 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1611 the first file untouched.
1612 * readlink: new program
1613 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1614 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1615 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1616 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1617 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1618 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1621 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1622 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1623 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1624 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1625 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1626 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1627 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1628 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1629 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1630 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1631 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1632 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1634 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1635 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1636 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1638 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1639 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1640 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1641 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1642 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1643 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1644 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1645 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1648 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1649 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1652 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1653 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1654 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1655 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1656 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1657 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1658 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1661 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1662 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1664 ========================================================================
1665 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1666 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1669 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1671 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1672 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1673 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1674 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1675 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1676 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1677 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1678 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1679 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1680 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1681 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1682 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1684 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1685 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1686 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1687 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1689 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1692 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1694 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1695 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1696 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1697 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1698 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1699 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1700 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1703 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1704 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1705 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1706 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1707 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1708 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1709 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1710 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1711 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1712 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1713 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1714 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1715 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1716 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1717 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1718 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1720 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1721 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1723 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1724 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1725 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1726 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1727 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1728 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1730 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1731 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1732 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1733 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1734 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1735 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1736 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1738 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1739 the source files in the following example:
1740 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1741 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1742 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1743 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1744 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1745 links between source files with --preserve=links
1746 * cp accepts new options:
1747 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1748 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1749 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1750 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1751 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1752 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1753 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1754 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1755 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1757 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1758 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1759 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1760 even though it's older than dest.
1761 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1762 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1763 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1764 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1765 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1767 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1768 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1769 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1770 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1771 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1772 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1773 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1775 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1776 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1777 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1779 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1780 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1781 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1782 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1783 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1784 This is the default.
1786 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1787 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1788 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1789 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1790 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1792 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1795 ========================================================================
1796 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1797 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1800 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1801 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1803 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1804 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1805 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1806 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1807 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1809 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1810 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1811 that specifies a non-directory
1814 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1815 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1816 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1817 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1818 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1819 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1820 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1821 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1822 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1823 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1824 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1825 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1826 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1827 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1828 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1829 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1830 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1831 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1832 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1833 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1834 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1835 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1836 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1837 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1839 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1840 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1841 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1843 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1845 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1846 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1848 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1849 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1850 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1851 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1852 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1854 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1855 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1856 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1857 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1858 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1860 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1862 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1863 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1864 * still more portability fixes
1865 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1866 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1868 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1870 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1872 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1874 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1875 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1876 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1877 there is any time remaining
1878 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1880 ========================================================================
1881 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1882 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1884 This package began as the union of the following:
1885 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
1887 ========================================================================
1889 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
1892 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
1893 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
1894 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
1895 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
1896 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
1897 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.