1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7-pre (????-??-??) [?]
7 du --one-file-system (-x) would skip subdirectories of any directory
8 listed as second or subsequent command line argument.
11 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.6 (2006-11-22) [stable]
15 ls would segfault (dereference a NULL pointer) for a file with a
16 nameless group or owner. This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.5.
18 A bug in the latest official m4/gettext.m4 (from gettext-0.15)
19 made configure fail to detect gettext support, due to the unusual
20 way in which coreutils uses AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
22 ** Improved robustness
24 Now, du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) honor a
25 trailing slash in the name of a symlink-to-directory even on
26 Solaris 9, by working around its buggy fstatat implementation.
29 * Major changes in release 6.5 (2006-11-19) [stable]
33 du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) would exit early
34 when encountering an inaccessible directory on a system with native
35 openat support (i.e., linux-2.6.16 or newer along with glibc-2.4
36 or newer). This bug was introduced with the switch to gnulib's
37 openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
39 "ln --backup f f" now produces a sensible diagnostic
43 rm accepts a new option: --one-file-system
46 * Major changes in release 6.4 (2006-10-22) [stable]
50 chgrp and chown would malfunction when invoked with both -R and -H and
51 with one or more of the following: --preserve-root, --verbose, --changes,
52 --from=o:g (chown only). This bug was introduced with the switch to
53 gnulib's openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
55 cp --backup dir1 dir2, would rename an existing dir2/dir1 to dir2/dir1~.
56 This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.0.
58 With --force (-f), rm no longer fails for ENOTDIR.
59 For example, "rm -f existing-non-directory/anything" now exits
60 successfully, ignoring the error about a nonexistent file.
63 * Major changes in release 6.3 (2006-09-30) [stable]
65 ** Improved robustness
67 pinky no longer segfaults on Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) due to a
68 buggy native getaddrinfo function.
70 rm works around a bug in Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) that would
71 sometimes keep it from removing all entries in a directory on an HFS+
72 or NFS-mounted partition.
74 sort would fail to handle very large input (around 40GB) on systems with a
75 mkstemp function that returns a file descriptor limited to 32-bit offsets.
79 chmod would fail unnecessarily in an unusual case: when an initially-
80 inaccessible argument is rendered accessible by chmod's action on a
81 preceding command line argument. This bug also affects chgrp, but
82 it is harder to demonstrate. It does not affect chown. The bug was
83 introduced with the switch from explicit recursion to the use of fts
84 in coreutils-5.1.0 (2003-10-15).
86 cp -i and mv -i occasionally neglected to prompt when the copy or move
87 action was bound to fail. This bug dates back to before fileutils-4.0.
89 With --verbose (-v), cp and mv would sometimes generate no output,
90 or neglect to report file removal.
92 For the "groups" command:
94 "groups" no longer prefixes the output with "user :" unless more
95 than one user is specified; this is for compatibility with BSD.
97 "groups user" now exits nonzero when it gets a write error.
99 "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
101 shuf would infloop, given 8KB or more of piped input
105 Versions of chmod, chown, chgrp, du, and rm (tools that use openat etc.)
106 compiled for Solaris 8 now also work when run on Solaris 10.
109 * Major changes in release 6.2 (2006-09-18) [stable candidate]
111 ** Changes in behavior
113 mkdir -p and install -d (or -D) now use a method that forks a child
114 process if the working directory is unreadable and a later argument
115 uses a relative file name. This avoids some race conditions, but it
116 means you may need to kill two processes to stop these programs.
118 rm now rejects attempts to remove the root directory, e.g., `rm -fr /'
119 now fails without removing anything. Likewise for any file name with
120 a final `./' or `../' component.
122 tail now ignores the -f option if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, no file
123 operand is given, and standard input is any FIFO; formerly it did
126 ** Infrastructure changes
128 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
129 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
130 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
131 infrastructure, it should cause no change in how the tools work.
135 cp --backup no longer fails when the last component of a source file
138 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
139 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
140 dirent.d_type support.
142 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
143 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
145 mv and "cp -r" no longer fail when invoked with two arguments
146 where the first one names a directory and the second name ends in
147 a slash and doesn't exist. E.g., "mv dir B/", for nonexistent B,
148 now succeeds, once more. This bug was introduced in coreutils-5.3.0.
151 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
153 ** Changes in behavior
155 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
159 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
160 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
164 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
165 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
166 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
168 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
169 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
171 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
172 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
174 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
176 ** Improved robustness
178 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
179 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
180 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
182 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
183 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
186 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
187 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
189 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
190 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
192 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
193 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
195 ** Changes in behavior
197 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
198 where the two are distinct.
200 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
201 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
202 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
203 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
204 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
205 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
206 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
207 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
208 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
209 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
210 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
211 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
212 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
213 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
214 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
215 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
216 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
218 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
219 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
220 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
222 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
223 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
224 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
225 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
228 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
229 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
233 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
234 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
235 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
236 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
238 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
239 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
240 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
242 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
243 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
244 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
245 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
246 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
249 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
250 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
252 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
253 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
254 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
255 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
257 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
258 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
259 successful and the output is easier to parse.
261 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
262 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
263 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
264 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
266 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
267 and sticky) with the -m option.
269 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
270 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
271 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
272 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
273 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
275 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
276 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
278 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
282 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
283 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
284 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
285 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
287 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
289 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
291 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
292 silently ignoring one of them.
294 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
295 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
296 containing this change was 5.92.
298 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
299 automatically newline terminated.
301 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
302 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
303 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
304 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
307 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
308 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
309 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
312 ** Scheduled for removal
314 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
315 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
317 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
318 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
319 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
320 command to unlink a directory.
322 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
323 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
324 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
325 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
329 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
330 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
331 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
332 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
333 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
334 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
338 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
339 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
341 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
343 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
344 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
345 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
347 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
348 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
351 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
352 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
354 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
355 list directories before files.
357 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
358 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
359 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
360 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
363 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
365 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
367 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
368 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
369 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
371 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
372 list of NUL-terminated file names.
376 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
377 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
378 usually printing nothing.
380 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
382 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
383 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
384 them with hard-linked directories.
386 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
387 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
388 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
390 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
391 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
392 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
394 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
397 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
398 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
400 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
401 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
403 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
404 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
406 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
407 all command-line arguments.
409 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
411 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
413 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
414 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
416 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
418 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
419 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
420 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
421 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
422 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
424 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
425 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
427 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
428 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
429 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
430 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
432 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
434 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
438 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
439 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
441 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
442 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
444 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
445 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
447 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
448 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
450 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
451 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
453 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
455 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
456 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
457 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
460 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
462 ** Build-related bug fixes
464 installing .mo files would fail
467 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
471 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
473 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
476 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
480 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
481 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
485 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
487 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
488 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
490 ** Deprecated options
492 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
493 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
495 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
499 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
501 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
502 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
503 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
504 conforming to older POSIX versions.
506 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
509 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
515 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
520 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
522 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
524 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
525 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
526 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
528 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
529 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
530 problematic usages. These include:
532 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
533 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
534 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
535 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
536 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
537 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
538 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
539 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
540 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
542 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
543 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
545 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
546 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
547 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
548 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
550 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
551 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
552 between binary and text files.
554 The following programs now always use text input/output:
558 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
562 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
563 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
566 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
568 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
569 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
571 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
572 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
573 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
575 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
577 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
579 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
580 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
581 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
585 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
587 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
588 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
590 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
591 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
592 blocks until F contains N blocks.
596 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
597 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
601 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
602 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
603 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
607 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
608 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
612 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
614 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
616 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
620 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
621 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
622 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
624 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
625 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
626 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
627 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
628 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
630 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
634 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
635 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
636 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
638 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
640 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
641 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
642 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
643 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
645 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
647 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
648 rather than silently wrapping around.
650 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
651 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
653 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
654 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
656 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
657 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
658 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
661 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
663 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
665 ** Improved robustness
667 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
668 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
669 no matter how large the result.
671 ** Improved portability
673 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
674 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
676 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
678 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
679 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
680 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
682 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
683 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
687 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
688 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
690 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
692 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8601 (-I)
693 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
694 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
695 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
697 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
698 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
700 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
701 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
702 categories if not specified by dircolors.
704 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
706 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
707 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
709 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
710 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
712 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
714 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
715 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
717 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
718 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
720 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
721 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
722 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
724 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
726 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
728 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
732 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
734 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
735 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
736 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
738 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
739 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
741 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
742 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
743 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
745 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
746 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
748 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
749 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
750 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
751 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
753 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
754 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
756 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
757 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
758 the file system does not support it.
760 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
762 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
763 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
765 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
767 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
768 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
770 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
771 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
772 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
773 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
775 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
776 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
779 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
780 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
781 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
782 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
784 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
785 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
786 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
787 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
789 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
790 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
792 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
794 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
795 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
796 reporting incorrect results.
800 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
801 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
803 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
806 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
808 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
809 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
811 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
812 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
814 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
817 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
818 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
819 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
820 the file name does not look like a page range.
822 printf has several changes:
824 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
825 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
827 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
828 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
829 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
831 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
832 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
835 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
836 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
838 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
839 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
841 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
843 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
844 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
846 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
848 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
850 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
851 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
852 when first encountering the directory.
856 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
857 output; POSIX requires this.
859 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
860 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
862 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
864 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
865 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
867 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
868 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
870 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
871 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
872 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
873 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
874 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
875 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
876 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
878 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
879 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
880 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
882 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
883 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
885 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
887 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
889 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
890 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
891 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
892 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
894 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
898 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
899 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
900 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
901 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
902 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
904 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
905 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
906 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
908 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
909 is longer than PATH_MAX.
911 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
912 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
914 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
915 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
916 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
917 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
918 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
920 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
921 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
923 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
924 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
926 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
928 nocreat do not create the output file
929 excl fail if the output file already exists
930 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
931 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
933 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
935 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
936 direct use direct I/O for data
937 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
938 sync likewise, but also for metadata
939 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
940 nofollow do not follow symlinks
941 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
943 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
945 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
946 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
949 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
950 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
951 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
952 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
953 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
954 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
956 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
957 list of NUL-terminated file names.
959 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
962 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
964 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
966 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
967 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
969 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
970 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
971 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
973 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
974 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
975 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
977 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
979 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
980 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
982 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
983 for compatibility with bash.
985 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
987 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
988 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
989 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
990 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
992 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
993 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
995 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
997 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
998 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
999 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
1001 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
1004 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
1006 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
1007 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
1008 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
1009 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
1010 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
1011 an offset, not as a file name.
1013 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
1014 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
1016 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
1017 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
1019 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
1020 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
1022 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
1023 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
1024 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
1026 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
1027 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
1029 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
1030 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
1034 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
1036 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
1038 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
1042 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
1043 or more arguments between partitions.
1045 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
1046 holes in the destination.
1048 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
1049 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
1050 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
1051 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
1052 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
1053 terminates immediately.
1055 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
1057 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
1059 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
1060 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
1061 not the empty string.
1063 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
1064 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
1068 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
1069 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
1070 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
1073 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
1080 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
1084 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
1085 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
1087 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
1088 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
1090 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
1091 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
1092 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
1095 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
1099 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
1100 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
1102 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
1103 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
1105 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
1106 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
1107 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
1109 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
1111 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
1114 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
1116 ** Configuration option
1118 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
1119 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
1123 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
1124 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
1128 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1129 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1130 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1133 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1134 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1135 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1136 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1137 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1138 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1139 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1142 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1146 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1147 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1148 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1150 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1151 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1153 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1155 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1156 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1157 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1158 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1160 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1162 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1163 not just the ones that reference directories
1165 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1166 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1168 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1169 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1170 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1172 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1173 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1174 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1175 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1176 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1177 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1179 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1184 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1185 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1187 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1189 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1191 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1193 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1194 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1196 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1197 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1199 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1201 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1205 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1207 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1209 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1210 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1211 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1212 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1213 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1215 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1216 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1218 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1219 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1221 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1222 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1224 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1225 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1226 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1230 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1231 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1232 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1233 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1234 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1235 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1236 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1237 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1238 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1239 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1240 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1241 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1242 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1243 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1245 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1247 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1248 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1250 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1252 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1254 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1255 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1257 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1259 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1260 without a trailing newline.
1262 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1263 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1265 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1268 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1272 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1274 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1276 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1277 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1278 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1279 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1281 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1283 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1284 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1285 be printed without leading spaces.
1287 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1288 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1293 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1294 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1295 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1297 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1299 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1300 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1302 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1303 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1305 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1306 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1308 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1310 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1312 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1314 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1315 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1317 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1319 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1321 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1322 byte offsets are specified.
1325 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1328 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1331 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1332 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1333 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1334 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1335 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1336 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1337 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1338 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1339 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1340 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1341 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1342 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1343 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1344 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1345 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1346 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1347 directory where M has write access.
1348 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1349 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1350 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1353 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1354 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1355 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1356 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1357 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1358 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1359 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1360 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1361 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1362 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1363 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1364 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1365 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1366 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1367 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1368 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1369 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1370 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1371 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1372 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1373 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1374 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1375 appeared one additional time.
1377 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1378 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1379 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1380 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1383 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1384 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1385 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1386 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1387 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1388 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1389 if there were more than 338.
1391 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1392 - false --help now exits nonzero
1395 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1396 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1397 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1398 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1401 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1402 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1403 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1404 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1405 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1408 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1409 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1410 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1411 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1412 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1413 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1414 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1417 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1418 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1419 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1420 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1421 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1422 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1424 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1425 under certain unusual conditions
1426 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1427 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1430 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1431 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1432 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1433 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1434 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1435 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1436 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1437 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1438 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1439 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1440 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1441 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1442 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1443 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1444 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1445 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1448 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1449 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1452 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1453 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1454 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1455 involving hard-linked directories
1456 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1457 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1458 character-special and block files
1461 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1462 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1463 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1464 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1465 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1466 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1467 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1468 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1469 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1471 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1472 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1473 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1474 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1475 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1476 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1477 specified on the command line.
1478 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1479 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1480 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1481 the first file untouched.
1482 * readlink: new program
1483 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1484 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1485 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1486 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1487 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1488 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1491 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1492 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1493 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1494 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1495 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1496 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1497 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1498 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1499 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1500 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1501 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1502 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1504 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1505 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1506 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1508 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1509 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1510 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1511 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1512 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1513 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1514 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1515 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1518 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1519 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1522 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1523 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1524 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1525 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1526 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1527 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1528 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1531 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1532 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1534 ========================================================================
1535 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1536 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1539 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1541 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1542 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1543 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1544 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1545 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1546 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1547 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1548 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1549 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1550 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1551 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1552 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1554 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1555 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1556 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1557 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1559 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1562 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1564 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1565 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1566 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1567 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1568 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1569 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1570 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1573 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1574 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1575 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1576 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1577 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1578 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1579 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1580 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1581 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1582 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1583 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1584 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1585 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1586 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1587 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1588 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1590 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1591 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1593 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1594 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1595 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1596 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1597 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1598 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1600 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1601 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1602 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1603 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1604 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1605 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1606 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1608 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1609 the source files in the following example:
1610 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1611 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1612 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1613 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1614 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1615 links between source files with --preserve=links
1616 * cp accepts new options:
1617 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1618 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1619 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1620 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1621 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1622 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1623 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1624 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1625 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1627 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1628 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1629 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1630 even though it's older than dest.
1631 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1632 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1633 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1634 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1635 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1637 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1638 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1639 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1640 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1641 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1642 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1643 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1645 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1646 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1647 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1649 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1650 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1651 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1652 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1653 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1654 This is the default.
1656 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1657 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1658 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1659 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1660 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1662 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1665 ========================================================================
1666 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1667 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1670 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1671 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1673 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1674 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1675 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1676 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1677 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1679 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1680 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1681 that specifies a non-directory
1684 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1685 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1686 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1687 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1688 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1689 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1690 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1691 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1692 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1693 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1694 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1695 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1696 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1697 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1698 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1699 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1700 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1701 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1702 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1703 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1704 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1705 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1706 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1707 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1709 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1710 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1711 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1713 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1715 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1716 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1718 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1719 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1720 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1721 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1722 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1724 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1725 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1726 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1727 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1728 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1730 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1732 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1733 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1734 * still more portability fixes
1735 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1736 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1738 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1740 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1742 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1744 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1745 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1746 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1747 there is any time remaining
1748 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1750 ========================================================================
1751 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1752 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1754 This package began as the union of the following:
1755 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
1757 ========================================================================
1759 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
1762 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
1763 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
1764 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
1765 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
1766 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
1767 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.