1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Major changes in release 6.0-cvs (????-??-??) [unstable]
7 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
8 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
10 ** Changes in behavior
12 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
13 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
14 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by chrooted
15 bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
17 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
18 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
19 successful and the output is easier to parse.
21 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
22 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
23 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
24 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
26 ** Scheduled for removal
28 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
29 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
30 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
31 command to unlink a directory.
33 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
34 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
35 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
36 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
40 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
41 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
42 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
43 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
47 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
48 all command-line arguments.
50 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
51 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
52 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
53 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
54 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
57 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
61 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
62 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
64 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
65 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
67 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
68 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
70 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
71 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
73 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
74 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
76 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
78 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
79 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
80 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
83 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
85 ** Build-related bug fixes
87 installing .mo files would fail
90 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
94 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
96 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
99 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
103 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
104 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
108 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
110 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
111 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
113 ** Deprecated options
115 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
116 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
118 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
122 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
124 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
125 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
126 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
127 conforming to older POSIX versions.
129 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
132 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
138 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
143 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
145 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
147 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
148 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
149 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
151 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
152 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
153 problematic usages. These include:
155 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
156 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
157 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
158 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
159 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
160 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
161 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
162 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
163 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
165 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
166 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
168 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
169 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
170 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
171 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
173 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
174 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
175 between binary and text files.
177 The following programs now always use text input/output:
181 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
185 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
186 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
189 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
191 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
192 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
194 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
195 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
196 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
198 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
200 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
202 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
203 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
204 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
208 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
210 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
211 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
213 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
214 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
215 blocks until F contains N blocks.
219 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
220 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
224 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
225 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
226 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
230 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
231 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
235 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
237 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
239 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
243 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
244 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
245 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
247 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
248 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
249 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
250 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
251 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
253 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
257 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
258 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
259 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
261 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
263 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
264 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
265 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
266 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
268 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
270 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
271 rather than silently wrapping around.
273 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
274 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
276 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
277 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
279 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
280 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
281 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
284 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
286 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
288 ** Improved robustness
290 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
291 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
292 no matter how large the result.
294 ** Improved portability
296 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
297 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
299 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
301 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
302 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
303 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
305 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
306 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
310 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
311 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
313 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
315 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8602 (-I)
316 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
317 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
318 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
320 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
321 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
323 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
324 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
325 categories if not specified by dircolors.
327 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
329 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
330 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
332 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
333 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
335 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
337 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
338 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
340 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
341 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
343 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
344 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
345 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
347 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
349 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
351 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
355 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
357 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
358 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
359 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
361 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
362 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
364 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
365 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
366 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
368 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
369 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
371 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
372 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
373 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
374 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
376 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
377 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
379 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
380 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
381 the file system does not support it.
383 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
385 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
386 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
388 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
390 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
391 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
393 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
394 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
395 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
396 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
398 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
399 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
402 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
403 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
404 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
405 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
407 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
408 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
409 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
410 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
412 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
413 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
415 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
417 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
418 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
419 reporting incorrect results.
423 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
424 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
426 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
429 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
431 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
432 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
434 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
435 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
437 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
440 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
441 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
442 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
443 the file name does not look like a page range.
445 printf has several changes:
447 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
448 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
450 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
451 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
452 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
454 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
455 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
458 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
459 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
461 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
462 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
464 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
466 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
467 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
469 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
471 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
473 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
474 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
475 when first encountering the directory.
479 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
480 output; POSIX requires this.
482 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
483 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
485 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
487 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
488 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
490 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
491 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
493 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
494 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
495 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
496 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
497 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
498 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
499 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
501 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
502 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
503 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
505 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
506 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
508 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
510 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
512 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
513 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
514 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
515 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
517 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
521 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
522 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
523 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
524 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
525 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
527 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
528 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
529 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
531 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
532 is longer than PATH_MAX.
534 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
535 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
537 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
538 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
539 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
540 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
541 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
543 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
544 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
546 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
547 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
549 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
551 nocreat do not create the output file
552 excl fail if the output file already exists
553 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
554 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
556 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
558 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
559 direct use direct I/O for data
560 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
561 sync likewise, but also for metadata
562 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
563 nofollow do not follow symlinks
564 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
566 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
568 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
569 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
572 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
573 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
574 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
575 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
576 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
577 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
579 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
580 list of NUL-terminated file names.
582 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
585 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
587 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
589 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
590 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
592 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
593 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
594 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
596 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
597 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
598 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
600 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
602 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
603 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
605 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
606 for compatibility with bash.
608 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
610 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
611 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
612 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
613 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
615 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
616 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
618 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
620 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
621 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
622 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
624 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
627 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
629 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
630 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
631 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
632 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
633 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
634 an offset, not as a file name.
636 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
637 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
639 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
640 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
642 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
643 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
645 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
646 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
647 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
649 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
650 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
652 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
653 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
657 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
659 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
661 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
665 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
666 or more arguments between partitions.
668 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
669 holes in the destination.
671 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
672 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
673 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
674 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
675 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
676 terminates immediately.
678 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
680 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
682 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
683 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
684 not the empty string.
686 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
687 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
691 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
692 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
693 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
696 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
703 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
707 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
708 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
710 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
711 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
713 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
714 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
715 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
718 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
722 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
723 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
725 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
726 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
728 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
729 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
730 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
732 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
734 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
737 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
739 ** Configuration option
741 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
742 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
746 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
747 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
751 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
752 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
753 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
756 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
757 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
758 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
759 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
760 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
761 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
762 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
765 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
769 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
770 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
771 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
773 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
774 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
776 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
778 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
779 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
780 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
781 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
783 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
785 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
786 not just the ones that reference directories
788 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
789 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
791 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
792 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
793 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
795 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
796 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
797 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
798 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
799 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
800 ragged when a datum was too wide.
802 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
807 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
808 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
810 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
812 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
814 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
816 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
817 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
819 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
820 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
822 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
824 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
828 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
830 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
832 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
833 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
834 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
835 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
836 resolution is the best we can do right now.
838 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
839 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
841 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
842 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
844 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
845 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
847 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
848 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
849 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
853 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
854 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
855 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
856 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
857 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
858 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
859 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
860 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
861 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
862 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
863 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
864 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
865 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
866 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
868 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
870 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
871 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
873 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
875 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
877 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
878 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
880 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
882 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
883 without a trailing newline.
885 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
886 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
888 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
891 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
895 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
897 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
899 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
900 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
901 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
902 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
904 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
906 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
907 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
908 be printed without leading spaces.
910 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
911 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
916 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
917 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
918 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
920 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
922 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
923 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
925 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
926 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
928 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
929 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
931 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
933 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
935 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
937 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
938 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
940 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
942 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
944 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
945 byte offsets are specified.
948 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
951 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
954 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
955 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
956 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
957 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
958 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
959 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
960 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
961 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
962 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
963 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
964 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
965 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
966 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
967 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
968 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
969 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
970 directory where M has write access.
971 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
972 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
973 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
976 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
977 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
978 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
979 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
980 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
981 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
982 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
983 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
984 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
985 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
986 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
987 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
988 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
989 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
990 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
991 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
992 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
993 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
994 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
995 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
996 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
997 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
998 appeared one additional time.
1000 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1001 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1002 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1003 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1006 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1007 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1008 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1009 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1010 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1011 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1012 if there were more than 338.
1014 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1015 - false --help now exits nonzero
1018 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1019 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1020 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1021 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1024 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1025 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1026 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1027 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1028 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1031 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1032 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1033 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1034 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1035 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1036 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1037 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1040 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1041 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1042 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1043 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1044 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1045 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1047 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1048 under certain unusual conditions
1049 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1050 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1053 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1054 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1055 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1056 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1057 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1058 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1059 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1060 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1061 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1062 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1063 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1064 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1065 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1066 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1067 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1068 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1071 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1072 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1075 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1076 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1077 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1078 involving hard-linked directories
1079 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1080 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1081 character-special and block files
1084 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1085 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1086 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1087 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1088 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1089 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1090 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1091 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1092 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1094 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1095 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1096 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1097 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1098 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1099 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1100 specified on the command line.
1101 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1102 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1103 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1104 the first file untouched.
1105 * readlink: new program
1106 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1107 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1108 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1109 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1110 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1111 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1114 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1115 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1116 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1117 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1118 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1119 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1120 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1121 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1122 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1123 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1124 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1125 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1127 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1128 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1129 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1131 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1132 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1133 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1134 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1135 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1136 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1137 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1138 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1141 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1142 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1145 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1146 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1147 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1148 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1149 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1150 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1151 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1154 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1155 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1157 ========================================================================
1158 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1159 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1162 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1164 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1165 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1166 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1167 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1168 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1169 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1170 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1171 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1172 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1173 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1174 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1175 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1177 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1178 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1179 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1180 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1182 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1185 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1187 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1188 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1189 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1190 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1191 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1192 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1193 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1196 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1197 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1198 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1199 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1200 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1201 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1202 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1203 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1204 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1205 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1206 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1207 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1208 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1209 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1210 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1211 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1213 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1214 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1216 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1217 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1218 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1219 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1220 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1221 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1223 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1224 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1225 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1226 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1227 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1228 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1229 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1231 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1232 the source files in the following example:
1233 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1234 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1235 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1236 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1237 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1238 links between source files with --preserve=links
1239 * cp accepts new options:
1240 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1241 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1242 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1243 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1244 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1245 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1246 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1247 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1248 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1250 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1251 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1252 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1253 even though it's older than dest.
1254 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1255 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1256 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1257 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1258 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1260 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1261 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1262 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1263 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1264 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1265 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1266 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1268 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1269 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1270 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1272 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1273 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1274 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1275 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1276 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1277 This is the default.
1279 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1280 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1281 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1282 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1283 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1285 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1288 ========================================================================
1289 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1290 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1293 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1294 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1296 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1297 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1298 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1299 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1300 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1302 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1303 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1304 that specifies a non-directory
1307 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1308 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1309 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1310 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1311 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1312 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1313 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1314 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1315 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1316 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1317 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1318 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1319 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1320 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1321 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1322 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1323 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1324 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1325 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1326 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1327 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1328 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1329 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1330 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1332 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1333 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1334 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1336 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1338 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1339 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1341 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1342 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1343 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1344 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1345 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1347 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1348 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1349 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1350 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1351 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1353 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1355 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1356 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1357 * still more portability fixes
1358 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1359 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1361 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1363 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1365 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1367 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1368 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1369 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1370 there is any time remaining
1371 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1373 ========================================================================
1374 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1375 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1377 This package began as the union of the following:
1378 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
projects / platform / upstream / coreutils.git / blob