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.
30 "rm --interactive=never F" no longer prompts for an unwritable F
34 sort can now compresses temporary files to improve performance of
38 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.7 (2006-12-08) [stable]
42 When cp -p copied a file with special mode bits set, the same bits
43 were set on the copy even when ownership could not be preserved.
44 This could result in files that were setuid to the wrong user.
45 To fix this, special mode bits are now set in the copy only if its
46 ownership is successfully preserved. Similar problems were fixed
47 with mv when copying across file system boundaries. This problem
48 affects all versions of coreutils through 6.6.
50 cp --preserve=ownership would create output files that temporarily
51 had too-generous permissions in some cases. For example, when
52 copying a file with group A and mode 644 into a group-B sticky
53 directory, the output file was briefly readable by group B.
54 Fix similar problems with cp options like -p that imply
55 --preserve=ownership, with install -d when combined with either -o
56 or -g, and with mv when copying across file system boundaries.
57 This bug affects coreutils 6.0 through 6.6.
59 du --one-file-system (-x) would skip subdirectories of any directory
60 listed as second or subsequent command line argument. This bug affects
61 coreutils-6.4, 6.5 and 6.6.
64 * Noteworthy changes in release 6.6 (2006-11-22) [stable]
68 ls would segfault (dereference a NULL pointer) for a file with a
69 nameless group or owner. This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.5.
71 A bug in the latest official m4/gettext.m4 (from gettext-0.15)
72 made configure fail to detect gettext support, due to the unusual
73 way in which coreutils uses AM_GNU_GETTEXT.
75 ** Improved robustness
77 Now, du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) honor a
78 trailing slash in the name of a symlink-to-directory even on
79 Solaris 9, by working around its buggy fstatat implementation.
82 * Major changes in release 6.5 (2006-11-19) [stable]
86 du (and the other fts clients: chmod, chgrp, chown) would exit early
87 when encountering an inaccessible directory on a system with native
88 openat support (i.e., linux-2.6.16 or newer along with glibc-2.4
89 or newer). This bug was introduced with the switch to gnulib's
90 openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
92 "ln --backup f f" now produces a sensible diagnostic
96 rm accepts a new option: --one-file-system
99 * Major changes in release 6.4 (2006-10-22) [stable]
103 chgrp and chown would malfunction when invoked with both -R and -H and
104 with one or more of the following: --preserve-root, --verbose, --changes,
105 --from=o:g (chown only). This bug was introduced with the switch to
106 gnulib's openat-based variant of fts, for coreutils-6.0.
108 cp --backup dir1 dir2, would rename an existing dir2/dir1 to dir2/dir1~.
109 This bug was introduced in coreutils-6.0.
111 With --force (-f), rm no longer fails for ENOTDIR.
112 For example, "rm -f existing-non-directory/anything" now exits
113 successfully, ignoring the error about a nonexistent file.
116 * Major changes in release 6.3 (2006-09-30) [stable]
118 ** Improved robustness
120 pinky no longer segfaults on Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) due to a
121 buggy native getaddrinfo function.
123 rm works around a bug in Darwin 7.9.0 (MacOS X 10.3.9) that would
124 sometimes keep it from removing all entries in a directory on an HFS+
125 or NFS-mounted partition.
127 sort would fail to handle very large input (around 40GB) on systems with a
128 mkstemp function that returns a file descriptor limited to 32-bit offsets.
132 chmod would fail unnecessarily in an unusual case: when an initially-
133 inaccessible argument is rendered accessible by chmod's action on a
134 preceding command line argument. This bug also affects chgrp, but
135 it is harder to demonstrate. It does not affect chown. The bug was
136 introduced with the switch from explicit recursion to the use of fts
137 in coreutils-5.1.0 (2003-10-15).
139 cp -i and mv -i occasionally neglected to prompt when the copy or move
140 action was bound to fail. This bug dates back to before fileutils-4.0.
142 With --verbose (-v), cp and mv would sometimes generate no output,
143 or neglect to report file removal.
145 For the "groups" command:
147 "groups" no longer prefixes the output with "user :" unless more
148 than one user is specified; this is for compatibility with BSD.
150 "groups user" now exits nonzero when it gets a write error.
152 "groups" now processes options like --help more compatibly.
154 shuf would infloop, given 8KB or more of piped input
158 Versions of chmod, chown, chgrp, du, and rm (tools that use openat etc.)
159 compiled for Solaris 8 now also work when run on Solaris 10.
162 * Major changes in release 6.2 (2006-09-18) [stable candidate]
164 ** Changes in behavior
166 mkdir -p and install -d (or -D) now use a method that forks a child
167 process if the working directory is unreadable and a later argument
168 uses a relative file name. This avoids some race conditions, but it
169 means you may need to kill two processes to stop these programs.
171 rm now rejects attempts to remove the root directory, e.g., `rm -fr /'
172 now fails without removing anything. Likewise for any file name with
173 a final `./' or `../' component.
175 tail now ignores the -f option if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, no file
176 operand is given, and standard input is any FIFO; formerly it did
179 ** Infrastructure changes
181 Coreutils now uses gnulib via the gnulib-tool script.
182 If you check the source out from CVS, then follow the instructions
183 in README-cvs. Although this represents a large change to the
184 infrastructure, it should cause no change in how the tools work.
188 cp --backup no longer fails when the last component of a source file
191 "ls --color" would highlight other-writable and sticky directories
192 no differently than regular directories on a file system with
193 dirent.d_type support.
195 "mv -T --verbose --backup=t A B" now prints the " (backup: B.~1~)"
196 suffix when A and B are directories as well as when they are not.
198 mv and "cp -r" no longer fail when invoked with two arguments
199 where the first one names a directory and the second name ends in
200 a slash and doesn't exist. E.g., "mv dir B/", for nonexistent B,
201 now succeeds, once more. This bug was introduced in coreutils-5.3.0.
204 * Major changes in release 6.1 (2006-08-19) [unstable]
206 ** Changes in behavior
208 df now considers BSD "kernfs" file systems to be dummies
212 printf now supports the 'I' flag on hosts whose underlying printf
213 implementations support 'I', e.g., "printf %Id 2".
217 cp --sparse preserves sparseness at the end of a file, even when
218 the file's apparent size is not a multiple of its block size.
219 [introduced with the original design, in fileutils-4.0r, 2000-04-29]
221 df (with a command line argument) once again prints its header
222 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
224 ls -CF would misalign columns in some cases involving non-stat'able files
225 [introduced in coreutils-6.0]
227 * Major changes in release 6.0 (2006-08-15) [unstable]
229 ** Improved robustness
231 df: if the file system claims to have more available than total blocks,
232 report the number of used blocks as being "total - available"
233 (a negative number) rather than as garbage.
235 dircolors: a new autoconf run-test for AIX's buggy strndup function
236 prevents malfunction on that system; may also affect cut, expand,
239 fts no longer changes the current working directory, so its clients
240 (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer malfunction under extreme conditions.
242 pwd and other programs using lib/getcwd.c work even on file systems
243 where dirent.d_ino values are inconsistent with those from stat.st_ino.
245 rm's core is now reentrant: rm --recursive (-r) now processes
246 hierarchies without changing the working directory at all.
248 ** Changes in behavior
250 basename and dirname now treat // as different from / on platforms
251 where the two are distinct.
253 chmod, install, and mkdir now preserve a directory's set-user-ID and
254 set-group-ID bits unless you explicitly request otherwise. E.g.,
255 `chmod 755 DIR' and `chmod u=rwx,go=rx DIR' now preserve DIR's
256 set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits instead of clearing them, and
257 similarly for `mkdir -m 755 DIR' and `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx DIR'. To
258 clear the bits, mention them explicitly in a symbolic mode, e.g.,
259 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,-s DIR'. To set them, mention them explicitly
260 in either a symbolic or a numeric mode, e.g., `mkdir -m 2755 DIR',
261 `mkdir -m u=rwx,go=rx,g+s' DIR. This change is for convenience on
262 systems where these bits inherit from parents. Unfortunately other
263 operating systems are not consistent here, and portable scripts
264 cannot assume the bits are set, cleared, or preserved, even when the
265 bits are explicitly mentioned. For example, OpenBSD 3.9 `mkdir -m
266 777 D' preserves D's setgid bit but `chmod 777 D' clears it.
267 Conversely, Solaris 10 `mkdir -m 777 D', `mkdir -m g-s D', and
268 `chmod 0777 D' all preserve D's setgid bit, and you must use
269 something like `chmod g-s D' to clear it.
271 `cp --link --no-dereference' now works also on systems where the
272 link system call cannot create a hard link to a symbolic link.
273 This change has no effect on systems with a Linux-based kernel.
275 csplit and nl now use POSIX syntax for regular expressions, not
276 Emacs syntax. As a result, character classes like [[:print:]] and
277 interval expressions like A\{1,9\} now have their usual meaning,
278 . no longer matches the null character, and \ must precede the + and
281 date: a command like date -d '2006-04-23 21 days ago' would print
282 the wrong date in some time zones. (see the test for an example)
286 df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
287 therefore does not normally display them. Also, inaccessible file
288 systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by
289 chrooted bind mounts) are now dummies, too.
291 df now fails if it generates no output, so you can inspect the
292 exit status of a command like "df -t ext3 -t reiserfs DIR" to test
293 whether DIR is on a file system of type "ext3" or "reiserfs".
295 expr no longer complains about leading ^ in a regular expression
296 (the anchor is ignored), or about regular expressions like A** (the
297 second "*" is ignored). expr now exits with status 2 (not 3) for
298 errors it detects in the expression's values; exit status 3 is now
299 used only for internal errors (such as integer overflow, which expr
302 install and mkdir now implement the X permission symbol correctly,
303 e.g., `mkdir -m a+X dir'; previously the X was ignored.
305 install now creates parent directories with mode u=rwx,go=rx (755)
306 instead of using the mode specified by the -m option; and it does
307 not change the owner or group of parent directories. This is for
308 compatibility with BSD and closes some race conditions.
310 ln now uses different (and we hope clearer) diagnostics when it fails.
311 ln -v now acts more like FreeBSD, so it generates output only when
312 successful and the output is easier to parse.
314 ls now defaults to --time-style='locale', not --time-style='posix-long-iso'.
315 However, the 'locale' time style now behaves like 'posix-long-iso'
316 if your locale settings appear to be messed up. This change
317 attempts to have the default be the best of both worlds.
319 mkfifo and mknod no longer set special mode bits (setuid, setgid,
320 and sticky) with the -m option.
322 nohup's usual diagnostic now more precisely specifies the I/O
323 redirections, e.g., "ignoring input and appending output to
324 nohup.out". Also, nohup now redirects stderr to nohup.out (or
325 $HOME/nohup.out) if stdout is closed and stderr is a tty; this is in
326 response to Open Group XCU ERN 71.
328 rm --interactive now takes an optional argument, although the
329 default of using no argument still acts like -i.
331 rm no longer fails to remove an empty, unreadable directory
335 seq defaults to a minimal fixed point format that does not lose
336 information if seq's operands are all fixed point decimal numbers.
337 You no longer need the `-f%.f' in `seq -f%.f 1048575 1024 1050623',
338 for example, since the default format now has the same effect.
340 seq now lets you use %a, %A, %E, %F, and %G formats.
342 seq now uses long double internally rather than double.
344 sort now reports incompatible options (e.g., -i and -n) rather than
345 silently ignoring one of them.
347 stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
348 FMT is automatically newline terminated. The first stable release
349 containing this change was 5.92.
351 stat accepts the new option --printf=FMT, where FMT is *not*
352 automatically newline terminated.
354 stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
355 via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT. That includes
356 octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
357 two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
360 With no operand, 'tail -f' now silently ignores the '-f' only if
361 standard input is a FIFO or pipe and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
362 Formerly, it ignored the '-f' when standard input was a FIFO, pipe,
365 ** Scheduled for removal
367 ptx's --copyright (-C) option is scheduled for removal in 2007, and
368 now evokes a warning. Use --version instead.
370 rm's --directory (-d) option is scheduled for removal in 2006. This
371 option has been silently ignored since coreutils 5.0. On systems
372 that support unlinking of directories, you can use the "unlink"
373 command to unlink a directory.
375 Similarly, we are considering the removal of ln's --directory (-d,
376 -F) option in 2006. Please write to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org> if this
377 would cause a problem for you. On systems that support hard links
378 to directories, you can use the "link" command to create one.
382 base64: base64 encoding and decoding (RFC 3548) functionality.
383 sha224sum: print or check a SHA224 (224-bit) checksum
384 sha256sum: print or check a SHA256 (256-bit) checksum
385 sha384sum: print or check a SHA384 (384-bit) checksum
386 sha512sum: print or check a SHA512 (512-bit) checksum
387 shuf: Shuffle lines of text.
391 chgrp now supports --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default),
392 as it was documented to do, and just as chmod, chown, and rm do.
394 New dd iflag= and oflag= flags:
396 'directory' causes dd to fail unless the file is a directory, on
397 hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version 2.1.126 and
398 later). This has limited utility but is present for completeness.
400 'noatime' causes dd to read a file without updating its access
401 time, on hosts that support this (e.g., Linux kernels, version
404 'nolinks' causes dd to fail if the file has multiple hard links,
405 on hosts that support this (e.g., Solaris 10 and later).
407 ls accepts the new option --group-directories-first, to make it
408 list directories before files.
410 rm now accepts the -I (--interactive=once) option. This new option
411 prompts once if rm is invoked recursively or if more than three
412 files are being deleted, which is less intrusive than -i prompting
413 for every file, but provides almost the same level of protection
416 shred and sort now accept the --random-source option.
418 sort now accepts the --random-sort (-R) option and `R' ordering option.
420 sort now supports obsolete usages like "sort +1 -2" unless
421 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. However, when conforming to POSIX
422 1003.1-2001 "sort +1" still sorts the file named "+1".
424 wc accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
425 list of NUL-terminated file names.
429 cat with any of the options, -A -v -e -E -T, when applied to a
430 file in /proc or /sys (linux-specific), would truncate its output,
431 usually printing nothing.
433 cp -p would fail in a /proc-less chroot, on some systems
435 When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
436 hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
437 them with hard-linked directories.
439 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
440 a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
441 inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.
443 fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
444 a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink. Before, such a
445 misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.
447 ls --indicator-style=file-type would sometimes stat a symlink
450 ls --file-type worked like --indicator-style=slash (-p),
451 rather than like --indicator-style=file-type.
453 mv: moving a symlink into the place of an existing non-directory is
454 now done atomically; before, mv would first unlink the destination.
456 mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally. Also, mv can
457 now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b
459 rm (on systems with openat) can no longer exit before processing
460 all command-line arguments.
462 rm is no longer susceptible to a few low-probability memory leaks.
464 rm -r no longer fails to remove an inaccessible and empty directory
466 rm -r's cycle detection code can no longer be tricked into reporting
467 a false positive (introduced in fileutils-4.1.9).
469 shred --remove FILE no longer segfaults on Gentoo systems
471 sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
472 mkstemp function. sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
473 function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
474 on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
475 SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.
477 tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
478 attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)
480 * Major changes in release 5.97 (2006-06-24) [stable]
481 * Major changes in release 5.96 (2006-05-22) [stable]
482 * Major changes in release 5.95 (2006-05-12) [stable]
483 * Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]
485 [see the b5_9x branch for details]
487 * Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]
491 dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
492 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute.
494 du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
495 2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).
497 md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
498 (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.
500 mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
501 a directory like `nonexistent/.'
503 rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
504 a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.
506 tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems.
508 "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
509 1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
510 POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
513 The documentation no longer mentions rm's --directory (-d) option.
515 ** Build-related bug fixes
517 installing .mo files would fail
520 * Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]
524 chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit
526 dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters
529 * Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]
533 "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
534 directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.
538 tail's --allow-missing option has been removed. Use --retry instead.
540 stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
541 Use --dereference (-L) instead.
543 ** Deprecated options
545 Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
546 that the long-named option is deprecated. Use `-k' instead.
548 du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
552 * Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]
554 ** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
555 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. The following changes apply only
556 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
557 conforming to older POSIX versions.
559 The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
562 expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
568 join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
573 tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
575 The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:
577 date -I TIMESPEC (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
578 od -w WIDTH (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
579 pr -S STRING (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)
581 A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
582 being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
583 problematic usages. These include:
585 Problematic Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
586 usage whether you prefer the behavior of:
587 POSIX 1003.2-1992 POSIX 1003.1-2001
588 sort +4 sort -k 5 sort ./+4
589 tail +4 tail -n +4 tail ./+4
590 tail - f tail f [see (*) below]
591 tail -c 4 tail -c 10 ./4 tail -c4
592 touch 12312359 f touch -t 12312359 f touch ./12312359 f
593 uniq +4 uniq -s 4 uniq ./+4
595 (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
596 standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".
598 These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
599 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
600 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
601 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
603 ** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
604 These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish
605 between binary and text files.
607 The following programs now always use text input/output:
611 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy data:
615 The following programs now always use binary input/output to copy
616 data, except for stdin and stdout when it is a terminal.
619 (cat behaves similarly, unless one of the options -bensAE is used.)
621 cat's --binary or -B option has been removed. It existed only on
622 MS-DOS-like platforms, and didn't work as documented there.
624 md5sum and sha1sum now obey the -b or --binary option, even if
625 standard input is a terminal, and they no longer report files to be
626 binary if they actually read them in text mode.
628 ** Changes for better conformance to POSIX
630 cp, ln, mv, rm changes:
632 Leading white space is now significant in responses to yes-or-no questions.
633 For example, if "rm" asks "remove regular file `foo'?" and you respond
634 with " y" (i.e., space before "y"), it counts as "no".
638 On a QUIT or PIPE signal, dd now exits without printing statistics.
640 On hosts lacking the INFO signal, dd no longer treats the USR1
641 signal as if it were INFO when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
643 If the file F is non-seekable and contains fewer than N blocks,
644 then before copying "dd seek=N of=F" now extends F with zeroed
645 blocks until F contains N blocks.
649 When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, "fold file -3" is now equivalent to
650 "fold file ./-3", not the obviously-erroneous "fold file ./-w3".
654 -p now marks only directories; it is equivalent to the new option
655 --indicator-style=slash. Use --file-type or
656 --indicator-style=file-type to get -p's old behavior.
660 Documentation and diagnostics now refer to "nicenesses" (commonly
661 in the range -20...19) rather than "nice values" (commonly 0...39).
665 nohup now ignores the umask when creating nohup.out.
667 nohup now closes stderr if it is a terminal and stdout is closed.
669 nohup now exits with status 127 (not 1) when given an invalid option.
673 It now rejects the empty name in the normal case. That is,
674 "pathchk -p ''" now fails, and "pathchk ''" fails unless the
675 current host (contra POSIX) allows empty file names.
677 The new -P option checks whether a file name component has leading "-",
678 as suggested in interpretation "Austin-039:XCU:pathchk:pathchk -p"
679 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6232>.
680 It also rejects the empty name even if the current host accepts it; see
681 <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/interps/doc.tpl?gdid=6233>.
683 The --portability option is now equivalent to -p -P.
687 chmod, mkdir, mkfifo, and mknod formerly mishandled rarely-used symbolic
688 permissions like =xX and =u, and did not properly diagnose some invalid
689 strings like g+gr, ug,+x, and +1. These bugs have been fixed.
691 csplit could produce corrupt output, given input lines longer than 8KB
693 dd now computes statistics using a realtime clock (if available)
694 rather than the time-of-day clock, to avoid glitches if the
695 time-of-day is changed while dd is running. Also, it avoids
696 using unsafe code in signal handlers; this fixes some core dumps.
698 expr and test now correctly compare integers of unlimited magnitude.
700 expr now detects integer overflow when converting strings to integers,
701 rather than silently wrapping around.
703 ls now refuses to generate time stamps containing more than 1000 bytes, to
704 foil potential denial-of-service attacks on hosts with very large stacks.
706 "mkdir -m =+x dir" no longer ignores the umask when evaluating "+x",
707 and similarly for mkfifo and mknod.
709 "mkdir -p /tmp/a/b dir" no longer attempts to create the `.'-relative
710 directory, dir (in /tmp/a), when, after creating /tmp/a/b, it is unable
711 to return to its initial working directory. Similarly for "install -D
714 "pr -D FORMAT" now accepts the same formats that "date +FORMAT" does.
716 stat now exits nonzero if a file operand does not exist
718 ** Improved robustness
720 Date no longer needs to allocate virtual memory to do its job,
721 so it can no longer fail due to an out-of-memory condition,
722 no matter how large the result.
724 ** Improved portability
726 hostid now prints exactly 8 hexadecimal digits, possibly with leading zeros,
727 and without any spurious leading "fff..." on 64-bit hosts.
729 nice now works on Darwin 7.7.0 in spite of its invalid definition of NZERO.
731 `rm -r' can remove all entries in a directory even when it is on a
732 file system for which readdir is buggy and that was not checked by
733 coreutils' old configure-time run-test.
735 sleep no longer fails when resumed after being suspended on linux-2.6.8.1,
736 in spite of that kernel's buggy nanosleep implementation.
740 chmod -w now complains if its behavior differs from what chmod a-w
741 would do, and similarly for chmod -r, chmod -x, etc.
743 cp and mv: the --reply=X option is deprecated
745 date accepts the new option --rfc-3339=TIMESPEC. The old --iso-8601 (-I)
746 option is deprecated; it still works, but new applications should avoid it.
747 date, du, ls, and pr's time formats now support new %:z, %::z, %:::z
748 specifiers for numeric time zone offsets like -07:00, -07:00:00, and -07.
750 dd has new iflag= and oflag= flags "binary" and "text", which have an
751 effect only on nonstandard platforms that distinguish text from binary I/O.
753 dircolors now supports SETUID, SETGID, STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE,
754 OTHER_WRITABLE, and STICKY, with ls providing default colors for these
755 categories if not specified by dircolors.
757 du accepts new options: --time[=TYPE] and --time-style=STYLE
759 join now supports a NUL field separator, e.g., "join -t '\0'".
760 join now detects and reports incompatible options, e.g., "join -t x -t y",
762 ls no longer outputs an extra space between the mode and the link count
763 when none of the listed files has an ACL.
765 md5sum --check now accepts multiple input files, and similarly for sha1sum.
767 If stdin is a terminal, nohup now redirects it from /dev/null to
768 prevent the command from tying up an OpenSSH session after you logout.
770 "rm -FOO" now suggests "rm ./-FOO" if the file "-FOO" exists and
771 "-FOO" is not a valid option.
773 stat -f -c %S outputs the fundamental block size (used for block counts).
774 stat -f's default output format has been changed to output this size as well.
775 stat -f recognizes file systems of type XFS and JFS
777 "touch -" now touches standard output, not a file named "-".
779 uname -a no longer generates the -p and -i outputs if they are unknown.
781 * Major changes in release 5.3.0 (2005-01-08) [unstable]
785 Several fixes to chgrp and chown for compatibility with POSIX and BSD:
787 Do not affect symbolic links by default.
788 Now, operate on whatever a symbolic link points to, instead.
789 To get the old behavior, use --no-dereference (-h).
791 --dereference now works, even when the specified owner
792 and/or group match those of an affected symlink.
794 Check for incompatible options. When -R and --dereference are
795 both used, then either -H or -L must also be used. When -R and -h
796 are both used, then -P must be in effect.
798 -H, -L, and -P have no effect unless -R is also specified.
799 If -P and -R are both specified, -h is assumed.
801 Do not optimize away the chown() system call when the file's owner
802 and group already have the desired value. This optimization was
803 incorrect, as it failed to update the last-changed time and reset
804 special permission bits, as POSIX requires.
806 "chown : file", "chown '' file", and "chgrp '' file" now succeed
807 without changing the uid or gid, instead of reporting an error.
809 Do not report an error if the owner or group of a
810 recursively-encountered symbolic link cannot be updated because
811 the file system does not support it.
813 chmod now accepts multiple mode-like options, e.g., "chmod -r -w f".
815 chown is no longer subject to a race condition vulnerability, when
816 used with --from=O:G and without the (-h) --no-dereference option.
818 cut's --output-delimiter=D option works with abutting byte ranges.
820 dircolors's documentation now recommends that shell scripts eval
821 "`dircolors`" rather than `dircolors`, to avoid shell expansion pitfalls.
823 du no longer segfaults when a subdirectory of an operand
824 directory is removed while du is traversing that subdirectory.
825 Since the bug was in the underlying fts.c module, it also affected
826 chown, chmod, and chgrp.
828 du's --exclude-from=FILE and --exclude=P options now compare patterns
829 against the entire name of each file, rather than against just the
832 echo now conforms to POSIX better. It supports the \0ooo syntax for
833 octal escapes, and \c now terminates printing immediately. If
834 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set and the first argument is not "-n", echo now
835 outputs all option-like arguments instead of treating them as options.
837 expand and unexpand now conform to POSIX better. They check for
838 blanks (which can include characters other than space and tab in
839 non-POSIX locales) instead of spaces and tabs. Unexpand now
840 preserves some blanks instead of converting them to tabs or spaces.
842 "ln x d/" now reports an error if d/x is a directory and x a file,
843 instead of incorrectly creating a link to d/x/x.
845 ls no longer segfaults on systems for which SIZE_MAX != (size_t) -1.
847 md5sum and sha1sum now report an error when given so many input
848 lines that their line counter overflows, instead of silently
849 reporting incorrect results.
853 If it fails to lower the niceness due to lack of permissions,
854 it goes ahead and runs the command anyway, as POSIX requires.
856 It no longer incorrectly reports an error if the current niceness
859 It no longer assumes that nicenesses range from -20 through 19.
861 It now consistently adjusts out-of-range nicenesses to the
862 closest values in range; formerly it sometimes reported an error.
864 pathchk no longer accepts trailing options, e.g., "pathchk -p foo -b"
865 now treats -b as a file name to check, not as an invalid option.
867 `pr --columns=N' was not equivalent to `pr -N' when also using
870 pr now supports page numbers up to 2**64 on most hosts, and it
871 detects page number overflow instead of silently wrapping around.
872 pr now accepts file names that begin with "+" so long as the rest of
873 the file name does not look like a page range.
875 printf has several changes:
877 It now uses 'intmax_t' (not 'long int') to format integers, so it
878 can now format 64-bit integers on most modern hosts.
880 On modern hosts it now supports the C99-inspired %a, %A, %F conversion
881 specs, the "'" and "0" flags, and the ll, j, t, and z length modifiers
882 (this is compatible with recent Bash versions).
884 The printf command now rejects invalid conversion specifications
885 like %#d, instead of relying on undefined behavior in the underlying
888 ptx now diagnoses invalid values for its --width=N (-w)
889 and --gap-size=N (-g) options.
891 mv (when moving between partitions) no longer fails when
892 operating on too many command-line-specified nonempty directories.
894 "readlink -f" is more compatible with prior implementations
896 rm (without -f) no longer hangs when attempting to remove a symlink
897 to a file on an off-line NFS-mounted partition.
899 rm no longer gets a failed assertion under some unusual conditions.
901 rm no longer requires read access to the current directory.
903 "rm -r" would mistakenly fail to remove files under a directory
904 for some types of errors (e.g., read-only file system, I/O error)
905 when first encountering the directory.
909 "sort -o -" now writes to a file named "-" instead of to standard
910 output; POSIX requires this.
912 An unlikely race condition has been fixed where "sort" could have
913 mistakenly removed a temporary file belonging to some other process.
915 "sort" no longer has O(N**2) behavior when it creates many temporary files.
917 tac can now handle regular, nonseekable files like Linux's
918 /proc/modules. Before, it would produce no output for such a file.
920 tac would exit immediately upon I/O or temp-file creation failure.
921 Now it continues on, processing any remaining command line arguments.
923 "tail -f" no longer mishandles pipes and fifos. With no operands,
924 tail now ignores -f if standard input is a pipe, as POSIX requires.
925 When conforming to POSIX 1003.2-1992, tail now supports the SUSv2 b
926 modifier (e.g., "tail -10b file") and it handles some obscure cases
927 more correctly, e.g., "tail +cl" now reads the file "+cl" rather
928 than reporting an error, "tail -c file" no longer reports an error,
929 and "tail - file" no longer reads standard input.
931 tee now exits when it gets a SIGPIPE signal, as POSIX requires.
932 To get tee's old behavior, use the shell command "(trap '' PIPE; tee)".
933 Also, "tee -" now writes to standard output instead of to a file named "-".
935 "touch -- MMDDhhmm[yy] file" is now equivalent to
936 "touch MMDDhhmm[yy] file" even when conforming to pre-2001 POSIX.
938 tr no longer mishandles a second operand with leading "-".
940 who now prints user names in full instead of truncating them after 8 bytes.
942 The following commands now reject unknown options instead of
943 accepting them as operands, so that users are properly warned that
944 options may be added later. Formerly they accepted unknown options
945 as operands; e.g., "basename -a a" acted like "basename -- -a a".
947 basename dirname factor hostname link nohup sync unlink yes
951 For efficiency, `sort -m' no longer copies input to a temporary file
952 merely because the input happens to come from a pipe. As a result,
953 some relatively-contrived examples like `cat F | sort -m -o F - G'
954 are no longer safe, as `sort' might start writing F before `cat' is
955 done reading it. This problem cannot occur unless `-m' is used.
957 When outside the default POSIX locale, the 'who' and 'pinky'
958 commands now output time stamps like "2004-06-21 13:09" instead of
959 the traditional "Jun 21 13:09".
961 pwd now works even when run from a working directory whose name
962 is longer than PATH_MAX.
964 cp, install, ln, and mv have a new --no-target-directory (-T) option,
965 and -t is now a short name for their --target-directory option.
967 cp -pu and mv -u (when copying) now don't bother to update the
968 destination if the resulting time stamp would be no newer than the
969 preexisting time stamp. This saves work in the common case when
970 copying or moving multiple times to the same destination in a file
971 system with a coarse time stamp resolution.
973 cut accepts a new option, --complement, to complement the set of
974 selected bytes, characters, or fields.
976 dd now also prints the number of bytes transferred, the time, and the
977 transfer rate. The new "status=noxfer" operand suppresses this change.
979 dd has new conversions for the conv= option:
981 nocreat do not create the output file
982 excl fail if the output file already exists
983 fdatasync physically write output file data before finishing
984 fsync likewise, but also write metadata
986 dd has new iflag= and oflag= options with the following flags:
988 append append mode (makes sense for output file only)
989 direct use direct I/O for data
990 dsync use synchronized I/O for data
991 sync likewise, but also for metadata
992 nonblock use non-blocking I/O
993 nofollow do not follow symlinks
994 noctty do not assign controlling terminal from file
996 stty now provides support (iutf8) for setting UTF-8 input mode.
998 With stat, a specified format is no longer automatically newline terminated.
999 If you want a newline at the end of your output, append `\n' to the format
1002 'df', 'du', and 'ls' now take the default block size from the
1003 BLOCKSIZE environment variable if the BLOCK_SIZE, DF_BLOCK_SIZE,
1004 DU_BLOCK_SIZE, and LS_BLOCK_SIZE environment variables are not set.
1005 Unlike the other variables, though, BLOCKSIZE does not affect
1006 values like 'ls -l' sizes that are normally displayed as bytes.
1007 This new behavior is for compatibility with BSD.
1009 du accepts a new option --files0-from=FILE, where FILE contains a
1010 list of NUL-terminated file names.
1012 Date syntax as used by date -d, date -f, and touch -d has been
1015 Dates like `January 32' with out-of-range components are now rejected.
1017 Dates can have fractional time stamps like 2004-02-27 14:19:13.489392193.
1019 Dates can be entered via integer counts of seconds since 1970 when
1020 prefixed by `@'. For example, `@321' represents 1970-01-01 00:05:21 UTC.
1022 Time zone corrections can now separate hours and minutes with a colon,
1023 and can follow standard abbreviations like "UTC". For example,
1024 "UTC +0530" and "+05:30" are supported, and are both equivalent to "+0530".
1026 Date values can now have leading TZ="..." assignments that override
1027 the environment only while that date is being processed. For example,
1028 the following shell command converts from Paris to New York time:
1030 TZ="America/New_York" date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2004-10-31 06:30'
1032 `date' has a new option --iso-8601=ns that outputs
1033 nanosecond-resolution time stamps.
1035 echo -e '\xHH' now outputs a byte whose hexadecimal value is HH,
1036 for compatibility with bash.
1038 ls now exits with status 1 on minor problems, 2 if serious trouble.
1040 ls has a new --hide=PATTERN option that behaves like
1041 --ignore=PATTERN, except that it is overridden by -a or -A.
1042 This can be useful for aliases, e.g., if lh is an alias for
1043 "ls --hide='*~'", then "lh -A" lists the file "README~".
1045 In the following cases POSIX allows the default GNU behavior,
1046 so when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set:
1048 false, printf, true, unlink, and yes all support --help and --option.
1049 ls supports TABSIZE.
1050 pr no longer depends on LC_TIME for the date format in non-POSIX locales.
1051 printf supports \u, \U, \x.
1052 tail supports two or more files when using the obsolete option syntax.
1054 The usual `--' operand is now supported by chroot, hostid, hostname,
1057 `od' now conforms to POSIX better, and is more compatible with BSD:
1059 The older syntax "od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]" now works
1060 even without --traditional. This is a change in behavior if there
1061 are one or two operands and the last one begins with +, or if
1062 there are two operands and the latter one begins with a digit.
1063 For example, "od foo 10" and "od +10" now treat the last operand as
1064 an offset, not as a file name.
1066 -h is no longer documented, and may be withdrawn in future versions.
1067 Use -x or -t x2 instead.
1069 -i is now equivalent to -t dI (not -t d2), and
1070 -l is now equivalent to -t dL (not -t d4).
1072 -s is now equivalent to -t d2. The old "-s[NUM]" or "-s NUM"
1073 option has been renamed to "-S NUM".
1075 The default output format is now -t oS, not -t o2, i.e., short int
1076 rather than two-byte int. This makes a difference only on hosts like
1077 Cray systems where the C short int type requires more than two bytes.
1079 readlink accepts new options: --canonicalize-existing (-e)
1080 and --canonicalize-missing (-m).
1082 The stat option --filesystem has been renamed to --file-system, for
1083 consistency with POSIX "file system" and with cp and du --one-file-system.
1087 md5sum and sha1sum's undocumented --string option has been removed.
1089 tail's undocumented --max-consecutive-size-changes option has been removed.
1091 * Major changes in release 5.2.1 (2004-03-12) [stable]
1095 mv could mistakenly fail to preserve hard links when moving two
1096 or more arguments between partitions.
1098 `cp --sparse=always F /dev/hdx' no longer tries to use lseek to create
1099 holes in the destination.
1101 nohup now sets the close-on-exec flag for its copy of the stderr file
1102 descriptor. This avoids some nohup-induced hangs. For example, before
1103 this change, if you ran `ssh localhost', then `nohup sleep 600 </dev/null &',
1104 and then exited that remote shell, the ssh session would hang until the
1105 10-minute sleep terminated. With the fixed nohup, the ssh session
1106 terminates immediately.
1108 `expr' now conforms to POSIX better:
1110 Integers like -0 and 00 are now treated as zero.
1112 The `|' operator now returns 0, not its first argument, if both
1113 arguments are null or zero. E.g., `expr "" \| ""' now returns 0,
1114 not the empty string.
1116 The `|' and `&' operators now use short-circuit evaluation, e.g.,
1117 `expr 1 \| 1 / 0' no longer reports a division by zero.
1121 `chown user.group file' now has its traditional meaning even when
1122 conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001, so long as no user has a name
1123 containing `.' that happens to equal `user.group'.
1126 * Major changes in release 5.2.0 (2004-02-19) [stable]
1133 * Major changes in release 5.1.3 (2004-02-08): candidate to become stable 5.2.0
1137 `cp -d' now works as required even on systems like OSF V5.1 that
1138 declare stat and lstat as `static inline' functions.
1140 time stamps output by stat now include actual fractional seconds,
1141 when available -- or .0000000 for files without that information.
1143 seq no longer infloops when printing 2^31 or more numbers.
1144 For reference, seq `echo 2^31|bc` > /dev/null takes about one hour
1145 on a 1.6 GHz Athlon 2000 XP. Now it can output 2^53-1 numbers before
1148 * Major changes in release 5.1.2 (2004-01-25):
1152 rmdir -p exits with status 1 on error; formerly it sometimes exited
1153 with status 0 when given more than one argument.
1155 nohup now always exits with status 127 when it finds an error,
1156 as POSIX requires; formerly it sometimes exited with status 1.
1158 Several programs (including cut, date, dd, env, hostname, nl, pr,
1159 stty, and tr) now always exit with status 1 when they find an error;
1160 formerly they sometimes exited with status 2.
1162 factor no longer reports a usage error if stdin has the wrong format.
1164 paste no longer infloops on ppc systems (bug introduced in 5.1.1)
1167 * Major changes in release 5.1.1 (2004-01-17):
1169 ** Configuration option
1171 You can select the default level of POSIX conformance at configure-time,
1172 e.g., by ./configure DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209
1176 fold -s works once again on systems with differing sizes for int
1177 and size_t (bug introduced in 5.1.0)
1181 touch -r now specifies the origin for any relative times in the -d
1182 operand, if both options are given. For example, "touch -r FOO -d
1183 '-5 seconds' BAR" sets BAR's modification time to be five seconds
1186 join: The obsolete options "-j1 FIELD", "-j2 FIELD", and
1187 "-o LIST1 LIST2..." are no longer supported on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.
1188 Portable scripts should use "-1 FIELD", "-2 FIELD", and
1189 "-o LIST1,LIST2..." respectively. If join was compiled on a
1190 POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, you may enable the old behavior
1191 by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1192 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1195 * Major changes in release 5.1.0 (2003-12-21):
1199 chgrp, chmod, and chown can now process (with -R) hierarchies of virtually
1200 unlimited depth. Before, they would fail to operate on any file they
1201 encountered with a relative name of length PATH_MAX (often 4096) or longer.
1203 chgrp, chmod, chown, and rm accept the new options:
1204 --preserve-root, --no-preserve-root (default)
1206 chgrp and chown now accept POSIX-mandated -L, -H, and -P options
1208 du can now process hierarchies of virtually unlimited depth.
1209 Before, du was limited by the user's stack size and it would get a
1210 stack overflow error (often a segmentation fault) when applied to
1211 a hierarchy of depth around 30,000 or larger.
1213 du works even when run from an inaccessible directory
1215 du -D now dereferences all symlinks specified on the command line,
1216 not just the ones that reference directories
1218 du now accepts -P (--no-dereference), for compatibility with du
1219 of NetBSD and for consistency with e.g., chown and chgrp
1221 du's -H option will soon have the meaning required by POSIX
1222 (--dereference-args, aka -D) rather then the current meaning of --si.
1223 Now, using -H elicits a warning to that effect.
1225 When given -l and similar options, ls now adjusts the output column
1226 widths to fit the data, so that output lines are shorter and have
1227 columns that line up better. This may adversely affect shell
1228 scripts that expect fixed-width columns, but such shell scripts were
1229 not portable anyway, even with old GNU ls where the columns became
1230 ragged when a datum was too wide.
1232 du accepts a new option, -0/--null, to make it produce NUL-terminated
1237 printf, seq, tail, and sleep now parse floating-point operands
1238 and options in the C locale. POSIX requires this for printf.
1240 od -c -w9999999 no longer segfaults
1242 csplit no longer reads from freed memory (dumping core on some systems)
1244 csplit would mistakenly exhaust virtual memory in some cases
1246 ls --width=N (for very large N) is no longer subject to an address
1247 arithmetic bug that could result in bounds violations.
1249 ls --width=N (with -x or -C) no longer allocates more space
1250 (potentially much more) than necessary for a given directory.
1252 dd `unblock' and `sync' may now be combined (e.g., dd conv=unblock,sync)
1254 * Major changes in release 5.0.91 (2003-09-08):
1258 date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.
1260 split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.
1262 cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
1263 file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
1264 Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
1265 timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
1266 resolution is the best we can do right now.
1268 sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
1269 The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.
1271 sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
1272 Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.
1274 `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
1275 in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.
1277 who -l now means `who --login', not `who --lookup', per POSIX.
1278 who's -l option has been eliciting an unconditional warning about
1279 this impending change since sh-utils-2.0.12 (April 2002).
1283 Mistakenly renaming a file onto itself, e.g., via `mv B b' when `B' is
1284 the same directory entry as `b' no longer destroys the directory entry
1285 referenced by both `b' and `B'. Note that this would happen only on
1286 file systems like VFAT where two different names may refer to the same
1287 directory entry, usually due to lower->upper case mapping of file names.
1288 Now, the above can happen only on file systems that perform name mapping and
1289 that support hard links (stat.st_nlink > 1). This mitigates the problem
1290 in two ways: few file systems appear to be affected (hpfs and ntfs are),
1291 when the bug is triggered, mv no longer removes the last hard link to a file.
1292 *** ATTENTION ***: if you know how to distinguish the following two cases
1293 without writing to the file system in question, please let me know:
1294 1) B and b refer to the same directory entry on a file system like NTFS
1295 (B may well have a link count larger than 1)
1296 2) B and b are hard links to the same file
1298 stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'
1300 fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
1301 E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s
1303 `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.
1305 `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1. Now it doesn't.
1307 seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
1308 requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.
1310 seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.
1312 paste no longer mistakenly outputs 0xFF bytes for a nonempty input file
1313 without a trailing newline.
1315 `tail -n0 -f FILE' and `tail -c0 -f FILE' no longer perform what amounted
1316 to a busy wait, rather than sleeping between iterations.
1318 tail's long-undocumented --allow-missing option now elicits a warning
1321 * Major changes in release 5.0.90 (2003-07-29):
1325 sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases
1327 `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:
1329 `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
1330 with status 0. To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
1331 `test -t 1'. To get help and version info for `test', use
1332 `[ --help' and `[ --version'.
1334 `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.
1336 wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
1337 size, if known. If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
1338 be printed without leading spaces.
1340 Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
1341 but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
1346 kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
1347 Why wasn't this noticed? Although many tests use kill, none of
1348 them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.
1350 `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault
1352 rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
1353 unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.
1355 uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
1356 corresponding line, as required by POSIX.
1358 expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
1359 and with status 3 if an error occurred. POSIX requires this.
1361 expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.
1363 split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.
1365 split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.
1367 `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
1368 when their output is redirected to /dev/full.
1370 `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.
1372 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1374 cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
1375 byte offsets are specified.
1378 * Major changes in release 5.0.1 (2003-07-15):
1381 - new program: `[' (much like `test')
1384 - head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
1385 N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
1386 - md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
1387 MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
1388 - date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
1389 - chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
1390 specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems. If chown *was not* compiled
1391 on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default. If chown
1392 was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
1393 old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
1394 - chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
1395 on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
1396 versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
1397 pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
1398 1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
1399 chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
1400 directory where M has write access.
1401 2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
1402 those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
1403 a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.
1406 - chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
1407 - `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
1408 - split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
1409 - tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
1410 delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing. That
1411 bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
1412 - du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
1413 - df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
1414 non-glibc, non-solaris systems
1415 - `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
1416 - readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
1417 lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
1418 - mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
1419 This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
1420 nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
1421 - date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
1422 - date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
1423 conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
1424 - fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
1425 - fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
1426 - tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
1427 as required by POSIX. Before, it would act as if the final token
1428 appeared one additional time.
1430 ** Fewer arbitrary limitations
1431 - tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
1432 Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
1433 - split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.
1436 - `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
1437 like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
1438 - stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
1439 - sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
1440 - rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
1441 Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
1442 if there were more than 338.
1444 * Major changes in release 5.0 (2003-04-02):
1445 - false --help now exits nonzero
1448 * printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
1449 * printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
1450 * printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
1451 * printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier
1454 * seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
1455 * seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
1456 * seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
1457 * df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
1458 * portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP
1461 * printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
1462 * shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
1463 * du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
1464 * du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
1465 via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
1466 * portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
1467 * du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1470 * du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
1471 * work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
1472 now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
1473 truncates it. Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
1474 * `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
1475 hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
1477 * rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1478 under certain unusual conditions
1479 * mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
1480 certain unusual conditions where they used to fail
1483 * du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
1484 * stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
1485 * du accepts new option: --apparent-size
1486 * du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
1487 * du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
1488 * df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
1489 corresponding to the listed mount point. Before, for a block- or character-
1490 special file command line argument, df would display that argument. E.g.,
1491 `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
1492 /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
1493 * test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
1494 context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
1495 mechanisms. For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
1496 `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
1497 writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
1498 prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.
1501 * du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
1502 contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)
1505 * du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
1506 * du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
1507 * du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
1508 involving hard-linked directories
1509 * `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
1510 * df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
1511 character-special and block files
1514 * ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
1515 nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
1516 * du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
1517 * du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
1518 even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
1519 * du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
1520 * rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
1521 * ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
1522 corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
1524 * ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
1525 Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
1526 * ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
1527 attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
1528 * Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
1529 longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
1530 specified on the command line.
1531 * shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
1532 Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
1533 and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
1534 the first file untouched.
1535 * readlink: new program
1536 * cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
1537 to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
1538 output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
1539 * rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
1540 * when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
1541 but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.
1544 * cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
1545 * `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
1546 * ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
1547 * stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
1548 * `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
1549 * `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
1550 * In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
1551 failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
1552 * printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
1553 * The following features have been added to the --block-size option
1554 and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
1555 - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
1557 $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
1558 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
1559 - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
1561 $ ls -l --block-size="K"
1562 -rw-rw-r-- 1 eggert src 46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
1563 * ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
1564 just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si. Fractional
1565 sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
1566 * df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
1567 block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
1568 * nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'
1571 * du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
1572 * `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument
1575 * `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
1576 * `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
1577 * `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
1578 * rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
1579 * printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
1580 * od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
1581 * tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option
1584 * du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
1585 * uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.
1587 ========================================================================
1588 Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
1589 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1592 * `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
1594 * rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
1595 owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
1596 * df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
1597 * New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
1598 * Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
1599 use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
1600 * The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
1601 Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
1602 * `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
1603 * stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
1604 * stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
1605 The old options will continue to work for a while.
1607 * rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
1608 * new programs: link, unlink, and stat
1609 * New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
1610 * `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
1612 * mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
1615 * rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
1617 * New cp option: --copy-contents.
1618 * cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R. Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
1619 traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
1620 * ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
1621 * The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
1622 supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. Use touch -t instead.
1623 * cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
1626 * cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
1627 * The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
1628 For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
1629 whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
1630 A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
1631 A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
1632 The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
1633 * -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
1634 * Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
1635 * New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
1636 * You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
1637 e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
1638 * The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
1639 incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
1640 df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
1641 df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
1643 * df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
1644 * dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
1646 * ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
1647 This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
1648 * dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
1649 On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
1650 resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
1651 lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed. This may be a kernel bug.
1653 * cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
1654 now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
1655 E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
1656 cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
1657 * chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
1658 these: g=o, o=g, o=u. E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
1659 of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
1661 * mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
1662 the source files in the following example:
1663 rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
1664 * ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX. It warns and doesn't infloop.
1665 * cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
1666 Use --parents to get the old meaning.
1667 * When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
1668 links between source files with --preserve=links
1669 * cp accepts new options:
1670 --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
1671 --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
1672 * cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
1673 to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
1674 * mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query}; provides a consistent
1675 mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
1676 destination files. Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
1677 same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
1678 * remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
1680 * mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
1681 when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
1682 * mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
1683 even though it's older than dest.
1684 * chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
1685 * cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
1686 the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
1687 * `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
1688 * ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
1690 * ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
1691 symbolic links on the command-line only. It is the default unless
1692 one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
1693 * ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
1694 * ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
1695 * ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
1696 * ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:
1698 - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
1699 `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
1700 - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
1702 - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
1703 'touko 14 2001' and 'touko 14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
1704 - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
1705 time stamps like 'May 14 2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
1706 specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
1707 This is the default.
1709 You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
1710 or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'. GNU Emacs 21
1711 and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
1712 if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
1713 locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".
1715 * --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".
1718 ========================================================================
1719 Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
1720 point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:
1723 * date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
1724 * fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
1726 * nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1727 - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
1728 - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
1729 - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
1730 127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
1732 * uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
1733 * pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
1734 that specifies a non-directory
1737 * who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
1738 --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
1739 The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
1740 the long option `--users'. --idle is no longer the same as -u.
1741 * The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
1742 - `date -I' is no longer supported. Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
1743 - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported. Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
1744 [This change was reverted in coreutils 5.3.1.]
1745 * New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
1746 'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
1747 New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
1748 Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
1749 and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
1750 the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
1751 * 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
1752 * 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
1753 this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
1754 * date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
1755 (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
1756 when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
1757 opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
1758 This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
1759 It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
1760 * factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
1762 * setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
1763 * `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
1764 * some DOS/Windows portability changes
1766 * `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
1768 * fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
1769 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
1771 * all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
1772 * printf exits nonzero upon write failure
1773 * yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
1774 * date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
1775 * portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
1777 * date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
1778 * printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
1779 required support; from Bruno Haible.
1780 * stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
1781 * seq's --equal-width option works more portably
1783 * fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
1785 * stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
1786 systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
1787 * still more portability fixes
1788 * unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
1789 is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1791 * fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
1793 * fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
1795 * Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
1797 * sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
1798 * sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
1799 * when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
1800 there is any time remaining
1801 * who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup
1803 ========================================================================
1804 For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
1805 packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.
1807 This package began as the union of the following:
1808 textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.
1810 ========================================================================
1812 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software
1815 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
1816 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
1817 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
1818 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
1819 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
1820 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.