1 GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7-dirty (????-??-??) [stable]
7 chgrp, chmod, and chown now honor the --preserve-root option.
8 Before, they would warn, yet continuing traversing and operating on /.
10 chmod no longer fails in an environment (e.g., a chroot) with openat
11 support but with insufficient /proc support.
13 cut no longer dumps core for usage like "cut -f2- f1 f2" with two or
14 more file arguments. This was due to a double-free bug, introduced
17 dd bs= operands now silently override any later ibs= and obs=
18 operands, as POSIX and tradition require.
20 "ls -FRL" always follows symbolic links on Linux. Introduced in
23 A cross-partition "mv /etc/passwd ~" (by non-root) now prints
24 a reasonable diagnostic. Before, it would print this:
25 "mv: cannot remove `/etc/passwd': Not a directory".
27 "rm -rf /etc/passwd" (run by non-root) now prints a diagnostic.
28 Before it would print nothing.
31 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7 (2006-12-08) [stable]
35 When cp -p copied a file with special mode bits set, the same bits
36 were set on the copy even when ownership could not be preserved.
37 This could result in files that were setuid to the wrong user.
38 To fix this, special mode bits are now set in the copy only if its
39 ownership is successfully preserved. Similar problems were fixed
40 with mv when copying across file system boundaries. This problem
41 affects all versions of coreutils through 6.6.
43 cp --preserve=ownership would create output files that temporarily
44 had too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when
45 copying a file with group A and mode 644 into a group-B sticky
46 directory, the output file was briefly readable by group B.
47 Fix similar problems with cp options like -p that imply
48 --preserve=ownership, with install -d when combined with either -o
49 or -g, and with mv when copying across file system boundaries.
50 This bug affects coreutils 6.0 through 6.6.
52 du --one-file-system (-x) would skip subdirectories of any directory
53 listed as second or subsequent command line argument. This bug affects
54 coreutils-6.4, 6.5 and 6.6.
57 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.6 (2006-11-22) [stable]
61 ls would segfault (dereference a NULL pointer) for a file with a
62 nameless group or owner. This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.5.
64 A bug in the latest official m4/gettext.m4 (from gettext-0.15)
65 made configure fail to detect gettext support, due to the unusual
66 way in which coreutils uses AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
68 ** Improved robustness
70 Now, du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) honor a
71 trailing slash in the name of a symlink-to-directory even on
72 Solaris 9, by working around its buggy fstatat implementation.
75 * Major changes in release 6.5 (2006-11-19) [stable]
79 du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) would exit early
80 when encountering an inaccessible directory on a system with native
81 openat support (i.e., linux-2.6.16 or newer along with glibc-2.4
82 or newer). This bug was introduced with the switch to gnulib's
83 openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
85 "ln --backup f f" now produces a sensible diagnostic
89 rm accepts a new option: --one-file-system
92 * Major changes in release 6.4 (2006-10-22) [stable]
96 chgrp and chown would malfunction when invoked with both -R and -H and
97 with one or more of the following: --preserve-root, --verbose, --changes,
98 --from=o:g (chown only). This bug was introduced with the switch to
99 gnulib's openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
101 cp --backup dir1 dir2, would rename an existing dir2/dir1 to dir2/dir1~.
102 This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.0.
104 With --force (-f), rm no longer fails for ENOTDIR.
105 For example, "rm -f existing-non-directory/anything" now exits
106 successfully, ignoring the error about a nonexistent file.
109 * Major changes in release 6.3 (2006-09-30) [stable]
111 ** Improved robustness
113 pinky no longer segfaults on Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) due to a
114 buggy native getaddrinfo function.
116 rm works around a bug in Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) that would
117 sometimes keep it from removing all entries in a directory on an HFS+
118 or NFS-mounted partition.
120 sort would fail to handle very large input (around 40GB) on systems with a
121 mkstemp function that returns a file descriptor limited to 32-bit offsets.
125 chmod would fail unnecessarily in an unusual case: when an initially-
126 inaccessible argument is rendered accessible by chmod's action on a
127 preceding command line argument. This bug also affects chgrp, but
128 it is harder to demonstrate. It does not affect chown. The bug was
129 introduced with the switch from explicit recursion to the use of fts
130 in coreutils-5.1.0 (2003-10-15).
132 cp -i and mv -i occasionally neglected to prompt when the copy or move
133 action was bound to fail. This bug dates back to before fileutils-4.0.
135 With --verbose (-v), cp and mv would sometimes generate no output,
136 or neglect to report file removal.
138 For the "groups" command:
140 "groups" no longer prefixes the output with "user :" unless more
141 than one user is specified; this is for compatibility with BSD.
143 "groups user" now exits nonzero when it gets a write error.
145 "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
147 shuf would infloop, given 8KB or more of piped input
151 Versions of chmod, chown, chgrp, du, and rm (tools that use openat etc.)
152 compiled for Solaris 8 now also work when run on Solaris 10.
155 * Major changes in release 6.2 (2006-09-18) [stable candidate]
157 ** Changes in behavior
159 mkdir -p and install -d (or -D) now use a method that forks a child
160 process if the working directory is unreadable and a later argument
161 uses a relative file name. This avoids some race conditions, but it
162 means you may need to kill two processes to stop these programs.
164 rm now rejects attempts to remove the root directory, e.g., `rm -fr /'
165 now fails without removing anything. Likewise for any file name with
166 a final `./' or `../' component.
168 tail now ignores the -f option if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, no file
169 operand is given, and standard input is any FIFO; formerly it did
172 ** Infrastructure changes
174 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
175 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
176 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
177 infrastructure, it should cause no change in how the tools work.
181 cp --backup no longer fails when the last component of a source file
184 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
185 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
186 dirent.d_type support.
188 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
189 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
191 mv and "cp -r" no longer fail when invoked with two arguments
192 where the first one names a directory and the second name ends in
193 a slash and doesn't exist. E.g., "mv dir B/", for nonexistent B,
194 now succeeds, once more. This bug was introduced in coreutils-5.3.0.
197 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
199 ** Changes in behavior
201 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
205 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
206 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
210 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
211 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
212 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
214 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
215 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
217 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
218 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
220 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
222 ** Improved robustness
224 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
225 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
226 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
228 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
229 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
232 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
233 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
235 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
236 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
238 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
239 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
241 ** Changes in behavior
243 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
244 where the two are distinct.
246 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
247 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
248 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
249 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
250 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
251 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
252 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
253 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
254 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
255 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
256 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
257 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
258 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
259 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
260 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
261 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
262 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
264 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
265 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
266 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
268 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
269 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
270 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
271 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
274 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
275 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
279 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
280 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
281 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
282 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
284 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
285 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
286 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
288 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
289 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
290 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
291 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
292 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
295 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
296 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
298 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
299 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
300 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
301 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
303 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
304 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
305 successful and the output is easier to parse.
307 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
308 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
309 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
310 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
312 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
313 and sticky) with the -m option.
315 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
316 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
317 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
318 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
319 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
321 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
322 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
324 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
328 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
329 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
330 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
331 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
333 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
335 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
337 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
338 silently ignoring one of them.
340 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
341 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
342 containing this change was 5.92.
344 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
345 automatically newline terminated.
347 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
348 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
349 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
350 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
353 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
354 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
355 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
358 ** Scheduled for removal
360 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
361 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
363 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
364 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
365 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
366 command to unlink a directory.
368 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
369 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
370 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
371 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
375 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
376 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
377 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
378 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
379 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
380 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
384 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
385 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
387 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
389 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
390 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
391 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
393 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
394 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
397 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
398 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
400 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
401 list directories before files.
403 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
404 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
405 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
406 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
409 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
411 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
413 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
414 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
415 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
417 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
418 list of NUL-terminated file names.
422 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
423 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
424 usually printing nothing.
426 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
428 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
429 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
430 them with hard-linked directories.
432 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
433 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
434 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
436 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
437 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
438 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
440 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
443 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
444 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
446 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
447 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
449 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
450 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
452 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
453 all command-line arguments.
455 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
457 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
459 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
460 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
462 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
464 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
465 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
466 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
467 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
468 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
470 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
471 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
473 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
474 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
475 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
476 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
478 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
480 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
484 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
485 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
487 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
488 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
490 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
491 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
493 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
494 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
496 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
497 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
499 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
501 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
502 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
503 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
506 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
508 ** Build-related bug fixes
510 installing .mo files would fail
513 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
517 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
519 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
522 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
526 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
527 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
531 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
533 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
534 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
536 ** Deprecated options
538 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
539 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
541 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
545 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
547 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
548 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
549 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
550 conforming to older POSIX versions.
552 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
555 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
561 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
566 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
568 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
570 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
571 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
572 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
574 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
575 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
576 problematic usages. These include:
578 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
579 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
580 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
581 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
582 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
583 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
584 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
585 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
586 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
588 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
589 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
591 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
592 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
593 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
594 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
596 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
597 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
598 between binary and text files.
600 The following programs now always use text input/output:
604 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
608 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
609 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
612 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
614 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
615 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
617 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
618 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
619 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
621 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
623 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
625 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
626 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
627 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
631 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
633 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
634 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
636 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
637 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
638 blocks until F contains N blocks.
642 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
643 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
647 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
648 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
649 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
653 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
654 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
658 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
660 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
662 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
666 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
667 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
668 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
670 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
671 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
672 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
673 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
674 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
676 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
680 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
681 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
682 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
684 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
686 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
687 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
688 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
689 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
691 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
693 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
694 rather than silently wrapping around.
696 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
697 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
699 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
700 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
702 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
703 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
704 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
707 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
709 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
711 ** Improved robustness
713 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
714 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
715 no matter how large the result.
717 ** Improved portability
719 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
720 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
722 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
724 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
725 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
726 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
728 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
729 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
733 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
734 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
736 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
738 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8601 (-I)
739 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
740 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
741 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
743 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
744 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
746 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
747 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
748 categories if not specified by dircolors.
750 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
752 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
753 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
755 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
756 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
758 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
760 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
761 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
763 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
764 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
766 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
767 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
768 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
770 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
772 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
774 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
778 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
780 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
781 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
782 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
784 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
785 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
787 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
788 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
789 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
791 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
792 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
794 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
795 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
796 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
797 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
799 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
800 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
802 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
803 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
804 the file system does not support it.
806 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
808 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
809 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
811 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
813 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
814 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
816 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
817 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
818 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
819 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
821 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
822 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
825 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
826 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
827 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
828 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
830 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
831 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
832 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
833 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
835 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
836 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
838 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
840 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
841 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
842 reporting incorrect results.
846 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
847 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
849 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
852 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
854 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
855 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
857 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
858 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
860 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
863 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
864 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
865 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
866 the file name does not look like a page range.
868 printf has several changes:
870 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
871 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
873 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
874 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
875 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
877 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
878 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
881 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
882 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
884 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
885 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
887 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
889 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
890 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
892 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
894 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
896 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
897 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
898 when first encountering the directory.
902 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
903 output; POSIX requires this.
905 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
906 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
908 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
910 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
911 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
913 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
914 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
916 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
917 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
918 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
919 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
920 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
921 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
922 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
924 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
925 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
926 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
928 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
929 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
931 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
933 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
935 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
936 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
937 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
938 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
940 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
944 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
945 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
946 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
947 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
948 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
950 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
951 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
952 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
954 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
955 is longer than PATH_MAX.
957 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
958 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
960 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
961 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
962 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
963 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
964 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
966 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
967 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
969 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
970 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
972 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
974 nocreat do not create the output file
975 excl fail if the output file already exists
976 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
977 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
979 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
981 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
982 direct use direct I/O for data
983 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
984 sync likewise, but also for metadata
985 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
986 nofollow do not follow symlinks
987 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
989 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
991 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
992 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
995 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
996 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
997 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
998 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
999 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
1000 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
1002 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
1003 list of NUL-terminated file names.
1005 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
1008 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
1010 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
1012 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
1013 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
1015 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
1016 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
1017 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
1019 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
1020 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
1021 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
1023 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
1025 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
1026 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
1028 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
1029 for compatibility with bash.
1031 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
1033 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
1034 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
1035 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
1036 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
1038 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
1039 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
1041 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
1042 ls supports TABSIZE.
1043 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
1044 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
1045 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
1047 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
1050 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
1052 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
1053 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
1054 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
1055 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
1056 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
1057 an offset, not as a file name.
1059 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
1060 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
1062 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
1063 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
1065 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
1066 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
1068 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
1069 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
1070 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
1072 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
1073 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
1075 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
1076 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
1080 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
1082 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
1084 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
1088 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
1089 or more arguments between partitions.
1091 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
1092 holes in the destination.
1094 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
1095 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
1096 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
1097 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
1098 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
1099 terminates immediately.
1101 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
1103 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
1105 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
1106 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
1107 not the empty string.
1109 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
1110 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
1114 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
1115 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
1116 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
1119 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
1126 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
1130 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
1131 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
1133 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
1134 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
1136 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
1137 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
1138 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
1141 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
1145 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
1146 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
1148 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
1149 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
1151 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
1152 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
1153 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
1155 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
1157 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
1160 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
1162 ** Configuration option
1164 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
1165 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
1169 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
1170 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
1174 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1175 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1176 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1179 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1180 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1181 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1182 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1183 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1184 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1185 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1188 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1192 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1193 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1194 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1196 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1197 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1199 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1201 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1202 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1203 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1204 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1206 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1208 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1209 not just the ones that reference directories
1211 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1212 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1214 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1215 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1216 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1218 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1219 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1220 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1221 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1222 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1223 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1225 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1230 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1231 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1233 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1235 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1237 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1239 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1240 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1242 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1243 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1245 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1247 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1251 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1253 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1255 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1256 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1257 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1258 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1259 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1261 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1262 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1264 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1265 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1267 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1268 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1270 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1271 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1272 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1276 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1277 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1278 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1279 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1280 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1281 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1282 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1283 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1284 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1285 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1286 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1287 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1288 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1289 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1291 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1293 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1294 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1296 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1298 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1300 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1301 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1303 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1305 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1306 without a trailing newline.
1308 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1309 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1311 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1314 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1318 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1320 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1322 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1323 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1324 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1325 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1327 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1329 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1330 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1331 be printed without leading spaces.
1333 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1334 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1339 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1340 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1341 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1343 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1345 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1346 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1348 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1349 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1351 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1352 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1354 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1356 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1358 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1360 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1361 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1363 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1365 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1367 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1368 byte offsets are specified.
1371 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1374 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1377 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1378 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1379 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1380 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1381 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1382 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1383 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1384 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1385 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1386 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1387 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1388 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1389 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1390 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1391 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1392 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1393 directory where M has write access.
1394 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1395 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1396 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1399 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1400 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1401 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1402 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1403 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1404 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1405 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1406 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1407 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1408 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1409 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1410 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1411 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1412 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1413 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1414 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1415 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1416 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1417 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1418 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1419 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1420 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1421 appeared one additional time.
1423 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1424 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1425 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1426 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1429 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1430 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1431 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1432 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1433 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1434 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1435 if there were more than 338.
1437 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1438 - false --help now exits nonzero
1441 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1442 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1443 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1444 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1447 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1448 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1449 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1450 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1451 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1454 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1455 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1456 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1457 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1458 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1459 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1460 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1463 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1464 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1465 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1466 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1467 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1468 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1470 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1471 under certain unusual conditions
1472 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1473 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1476 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1477 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1478 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1479 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1480 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1481 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1482 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1483 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1484 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1485 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1486 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1487 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1488 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1489 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1490 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1491 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1494 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1495 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1498 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1499 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1500 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1501 involving hard-linked directories
1502 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1503 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1504 character-special and block files
1507 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1508 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1509 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1510 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1511 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1512 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1513 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1514 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1515 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1517 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1518 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1519 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1520 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1521 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1522 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1523 specified on the command line.
1524 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1525 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1526 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1527 the first file untouched.
1528 * readlink: new program
1529 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1530 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1531 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1532 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1533 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1534 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1537 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1538 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1539 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1540 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1541 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1542 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1543 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1544 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1545 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1546 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1547 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1548 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1550 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1551 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1552 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1554 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1555 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1556 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1557 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1558 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1559 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1560 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1561 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1564 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1565 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1568 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1569 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1570 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1571 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1572 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1573 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1574 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1577 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1578 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1580 ========================================================================
1581 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1582 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1585 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1587 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1588 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1589 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1590 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1591 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1592 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1593 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1594 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1595 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1596 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1597 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1598 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1600 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1601 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1602 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1603 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1605 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1608 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1610 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1611 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1612 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1613 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1614 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1615 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1616 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1619 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1620 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1621 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1622 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1623 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1624 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1625 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1626 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1627 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1628 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1629 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1630 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1631 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1632 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1633 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1634 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1636 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1637 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1639 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1640 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1641 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1642 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1643 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1644 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1646 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1647 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1648 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1649 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1650 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1651 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1652 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1654 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1655 the source files in the following example:
1656 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1657 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1658 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1659 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1660 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1661 links between source files with --preserve=links
1662 * cp accepts new options:
1663 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1664 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1665 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1666 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1667 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1668 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1669 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1670 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1671 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1673 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1674 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1675 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1676 even though it's older than dest.
1677 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1678 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1679 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1680 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1681 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1683 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1684 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1685 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1686 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1687 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1688 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1689 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1691 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1692 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1693 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1695 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1696 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1697 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1698 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1699 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1700 This is the default.
1702 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1703 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1704 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1705 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1706 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1708 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1711 ========================================================================
1712 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1713 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1716 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1717 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1719 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1720 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1721 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1722 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1723 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1725 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1726 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1727 that specifies a non-directory
1730 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1731 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1732 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1733 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1734 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1735 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1736 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1737 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1738 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1739 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1740 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1741 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1742 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1743 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1744 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1745 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1746 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1747 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1748 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1749 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1750 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1751 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1752 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1753 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1755 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1756 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1757 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1759 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1761 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1762 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1764 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1765 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1766 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1767 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1768 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1770 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1771 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1772 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1773 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1774 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1776 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1778 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1779 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1780 * still more portability fixes
1781 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1782 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1784 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1786 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1788 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1790 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1791 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1792 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1793 there is any time remaining
1794 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1796 ========================================================================
1797 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1798 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1800 This package began as the union of the following:
1801 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
1803 ========================================================================
1805 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
1808 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
1809 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
1810 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
1811 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
1812 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
1813 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.