coreutils/NEWS

GNU coreutils NEWS                                    -*- outline -*-
* Major changes in release 5.0.91:

** New features

  date accepts a new option --rfc-2822, an alias for --rfc-822.

  split accepts a new option -d or --numeric-suffixes.

  cp, install, mv, and touch now preserve microsecond resolution on
  file timestamps, on platforms that have the 'utimes' system call.
  Unfortunately there is no system call yet to preserve file
  timestamps to their full nanosecond resolution; microsecond
  resolution is the best we can do right now.

  sort now supports the zero byte (NUL) as a field separator; use -t '\0'.
  The -t '' option, which formerly had no effect, is now an error.

  sort option order no longer matters for the options -S, -d, -i, -o, and -t.
  Stronger options override weaker, and incompatible options are diagnosed.

  `sha1sum --check' now accepts the BSD format for SHA1 message digests
  in addition to the BSD format for MD5 ones.

** Bug fixes

  stat no longer overruns a buffer for format strings ending in `%'

  fold -s -wN would infloop for N < 8 with TABs in the input.
  E.g., this would not terminate: printf 'a\t' | fold -w2 -s

  `split -a0', although of questionable utility, is accepted once again.

  `df DIR' used to hang under some conditions on OSF/1 5.1.  Now it doesn't.

  seq's --width (-w) option now works properly even when the endpoint
  requiring the larger width is negative and smaller than the other endpoint.

  seq's default step is 1, even if LAST < FIRST.


* Major changes in release 5.0.90:

** New features

  sort is now up to 30% more CPU-efficient in some cases

  `test' is now more compatible with Bash and POSIX:

    `test -t', `test --help', and `test --version' now silently exit
    with status 0.  To test whether standard output is a terminal, use
    `test -t 1'.  To get help and version info for `test', use
    `[ --help' and `[ --version'.

    `test' now exits with status 2 (not 1) if there is an error.

  wc count field widths now are heuristically adjusted depending on the input
  size, if known.  If only one count is printed, it is guaranteed to
  be printed without leading spaces.

  Previously, wc did not align the count fields if POSIXLY_CORRECT was set,
  but POSIX did not actually require this undesirable behavior, so it
  has been removed.

** Bug fixes

  kill no longer tries to operate on argv[0] (introduced in 5.0.1)
  Why wasn't this noticed?  Although many tests use kill, none of
  them made an effort to avoid using the shell's built-in kill.

  `[' invoked with no arguments no longer evokes a segfault

  rm without --recursive (aka -r or -R) no longer prompts regarding
  unwritable directories, as required by POSIX.

  uniq -c now uses a SPACE, not a TAB between the count and the
  corresponding line, as required by POSIX.

  expr now exits with status 2 if the expression is syntactically valid,
  and with status 3 if an error occurred.  POSIX requires this.

  expr now reports trouble if string comparison fails due to a collation error.

  split now generates suffixes properly on EBCDIC hosts.

  split -a0 now works, as POSIX requires.

  `sort --version' and `sort --help' fail, as they should
  when their output is redirected to /dev/full.

  `su --version > /dev/full' now fails, as it should.

** Fewer arbitrary limitations

  cut requires 97% less memory when very large field numbers or
  byte offsets are specified.


* Major changes in release 5.0.1:

** New programs
- new program: `[' (much like `test')

** New features
- head now accepts --lines=-N (--bytes=-N) to print all but the
  N lines (bytes) at the end of the file
- md5sum --check now accepts the output of the BSD md5sum program, e.g.,
  MD5 (f) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
- date -d DATE can now parse a DATE string like May-23-2003
- chown: `.' is no longer recognized as a separator in the OWNER:GROUP
  specifier on POSIX 1003.1-2001 systems.  If chown *was not* compiled
  on such a system, then it still accepts `.', by default.  If chown
  was compiled on a POSIX 1003.1-2001 system, then you may enable the
  old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your environment.
- chown no longer tries to preserve set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits;
  on some systems, the chown syscall resets those bits, and previous
  versions of the chown command would call chmod to restore the original,
  pre-chown(2) settings, but that behavior is problematic.
  1) There was a window whereby a malicious user, M, could subvert a
  chown command run by some other user and operating on files in a
  directory where M has write access.
  2) Before (and even now, on systems with chown(2) that doesn't reset
  those bits), an unwary admin. could use chown unwittingly to create e.g.,
  a set-user-ID root copy of /bin/sh.

** Bug fixes
- chown --dereference no longer leaks a file descriptor per symlink processed
- `du /' once again prints the `/' on the last line
- split's --verbose option works once again [broken in 4.5.10 and 5.0]
- tail -f is no longer subject to a race condition that could make it
  delay displaying the last part of a file that had stopped growing.  That
  bug could also make tail -f give an unwarranted `file truncated' warning.
- du no longer runs out of file descriptors unnecessarily
- df and `readlink --canonicalize' no longer corrupt the heap on
  non-glibc, non-solaris systems
- `env -u UNSET_VARIABLE' no longer dumps core on non-glibc systems
- readlink's --canonicalize option now works on systems like Solaris that
  lack the canonicalize_file_name function but do have resolvepath.
- mv now removes `a' in this example on all systems: touch a; ln a b; mv a b
  This behavior is contrary to POSIX (which requires that the mv command do
  nothing and exit successfully), but I suspect POSIX will change.
- date's %r format directive now honors locale settings
- date's `-' (no-pad) format flag now affects the space-padded-by-default
  conversion specifiers, %e, %k, %l
- fmt now diagnoses invalid obsolescent width specifications like `-72x'
- fmt now exits nonzero when unable to open an input file
- tsort now fails when given an odd number of input tokens,
  as required by POSIX.  Before, it would act as if the final token
  appeared one additional time.

** Fewer arbitrary limitations
- tail's byte and line counts are no longer limited to OFF_T_MAX.
  Now the limit is UINTMAX_MAX (usually 2^64).
- split can now handle --bytes=N and --lines=N with N=2^31 or more.

** Portability
- `kill -t' now prints signal descriptions (rather than `?') on systems
  like Tru64 with __sys_siglist but no strsignal function.
- stat.c now compiles on Ultrix systems
- sleep now works on AIX systems that lack support for clock_gettime
- rm now works around Darwin6.5's broken readdir function
  Before `rm -rf DIR' would fail to remove all files in DIR
  if there were more than 338.

* Major changes in release 5.0:
- false --help now exits nonzero

[4.5.12]
* printf no longer treats \x specially when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set
* printf avoids buffer overrun with format ending in a backslash and
* printf avoids buffer overrun with incomplete conversion specifier
* printf accepts multiple flags in a single conversion specifier

[4.5.11]
* seq no longer requires that a field width be specified
* seq no longer fails when given a field width of `0'
* seq now accepts ` ' and `'' as valid format flag characters
* df now shows a HOSTNAME: prefix for each remote-mounted file system on AIX 5.1
* portability tweaks for HP-UX, AIX 5.1, DJGPP

[4.5.10]
* printf no longer segfaults for a negative field width or precision
* shred now always enables --exact for non-regular files
* du no longer lists hard-linked files more than once
* du no longer dumps core on some systems due to `infinite' recursion
  via nftw's use of the buggy replacement function in getcwd.c
* portability patches for a few vendor compilers and 64-bit systems
* du -S *really* now works like it did before the change in 4.5.5

[4.5.9]
* du no longer truncates file sizes or sums to fit in 32-bit size_t
* work around Linux kernel bug in getcwd (fixed in 2.4.21-pre4), so that pwd
  now fails if the name of the working directory is so long that getcwd
  truncates it.  Before it would print the truncated name and exit successfully.
* `df /some/mount-point' no longer hangs on a GNU libc system when another
  hard-mounted NFS file system (preceding /some/mount-point in /proc/mounts)
  is inaccessible.
* rm -rf now gives an accurate diagnostic when failing to remove a file
  under certain unusual conditions
* mv and `cp --preserve=links' now preserve multiple hard links even under
  certain unusual conditions where they used to fail

[4.5.8]
* du -S once again works like it did before the change in 4.5.5
* stat accepts a new file format, %B, for the size of each block reported by %b
* du accepts new option: --apparent-size
* du --bytes (-b) works the same way it did in fileutils-3.16 and before
* du reports proper sizes for directories (not zero) (broken in 4.5.6 or 4.5.7)
* df now always displays under `Filesystem', the device file name
  corresponding to the listed mount point.  Before, for a block- or character-
  special file command line argument, df would display that argument.  E.g.,
  `df /dev/hda' would list `/dev/hda' as the `Filesystem', rather than say
  /dev/hda3 (the device on which `/' is mounted), as it does now.
* test now works properly when invoked from a set user ID or set group ID
  context and when testing access to files subject to alternate protection
  mechanisms.  For example, without this change, a set-UID program that invoked
  `test -w F' (to see if F is writable) could mistakenly report that it *was*
  writable, even though F was on a read-only file system, or F had an ACL
  prohibiting write access, or F was marked as immutable.

[4.5.7]
* du would fail with more than one DIR argument when any but the last did not
  contain a slash (due to a bug in ftw.c)

[4.5.6]
* du no longer segfaults on Solaris systems (fixed heap-corrupting bug in ftw.c)
* du --exclude=FILE works once again (this was broken by the rewrite for 4.5.5)
* du no longer gets a failed assertion for certain hierarchy lay-outs
  involving hard-linked directories
* `who -r' no longer segfaults when using non-C-locale messages
* df now displays a mount point (usually `/') for non-mounted
  character-special and block files

[4.5.5]
* ls --dired produces correct byte offset for file names containing
  nonprintable characters in a multibyte locale
* du has been rewritten to use a variant of GNU libc's ftw.c
* du now counts the space associated with a directory's directory entry,
  even if it cannot list or chdir into that subdirectory.
* du -S now includes the st_size of each entry corresponding to a subdirectory
* rm on FreeBSD can once again remove directories from NFS-mounted file systems
* ls has a new option --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir, which
  corresponds to the new default behavior when none of -d, -l -F, -H, -L
  has been specified.
* ls dangling-symlink now prints `dangling-symlink'.
  Before, it would fail with `no such file or directory'.
* ls -s symlink-to-non-dir and ls -i symlink-to-non-dir now print
  attributes of `symlink', rather than attributes of their referents.
* Fix a bug introduced in 4.5.4 that made it so that ls --color would no
  longer highlight the names of files with the execute bit set when not
  specified on the command line.
* shred's --zero (-z) option no longer gobbles up any following argument.
  Before, `shred --zero file' would produce `shred: missing file argument',
  and worse, `shred --zero f1 f2 ...' would appear to work, but would leave
  the first file untouched.
* readlink: new program
* cut: new feature: when used to select ranges of byte offsets (as opposed
  to ranges of fields) and when --output-delimiter=STRING is specified,
  output STRING between ranges of selected bytes.
* rm -r can no longer be tricked into mistakenly reporting a cycle.
* when rm detects a directory cycle, it no longer aborts the entire command,
  but rather merely stops processing the affected command line argument.

[4.5.4]
* cp no longer fails to parse options like this: --preserve=mode,ownership
* `ls --color -F symlink-to-dir' works properly
* ls is much more efficient on directories with valid dirent.d_type.
* stty supports all baud rates defined in linux-2.4.19.
* `du symlink-to-dir/' would improperly remove the trailing slash
* `du ""' would evoke a bounds violation.
* In the unlikely event that running `du /' resulted in `stat ("/", ...)'
  failing, du would give a diagnostic about `' (empty string) rather than `/'.
* printf: a hexadecimal escape sequence has at most two hex. digits, not three.
* The following features have been added to the --block-size option
  and similar environment variables of df, du, and ls.
  - A leading "'" generates numbers with thousands separators.
    For example:
      $ ls -l --block-size="'1" file
      -rw-rw-r--    1 eggert   src      47,483,707 Sep 24 23:40 file
  - A size suffix without a leading integer generates a suffix in the output.
    For example:
      $ ls -l --block-size="K"
      -rw-rw-r--    1 eggert   src          46371K Sep 24 23:40 file
* ls's --block-size option now affects file sizes in all cases, not
  just for --block-size=human-readable and --block-size=si.  Fractional
  sizes are now always rounded up, for consistency with df and du.
* df now displays the block size using powers of 1000 if the requested
  block size seems to be a multiple of a power of 1000.
* nl no longer gets a segfault when run like this `yes|nl -s%n'

[4.5.3]
* du --dereference-args (-D) no longer fails in certain cases
* `ln --target-dir=DIR' no longer fails when given a single argument

[4.5.2]
* `rm -i dir' (without --recursive (-r)) no longer recurses into dir
* `tail -c N FILE' now works with files of size >= 4GB
* `mkdir -p' can now create very deep (e.g. 40,000-component) directories
* rmdir -p dir-with-trailing-slash/ no longer fails
* printf now honors the `--' command line delimiter
* od's 8-byte formats x8, o8, and u8 now work
* tail now accepts fractional seconds for its --sleep-interval=S (-s) option

[4.5.1]
* du and ls now report sizes of symbolic links (before they'd always report 0)
* uniq now obeys the LC_COLLATE locale, as per POSIX 1003.1-2001 TC1.

========================================================================
Here are the NEWS entries made from fileutils-4.1 until the
point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:

[4.1.11]
* `rm symlink-to-unwritable' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.10]
[4.1.10]
* rm once again gives a reasonable diagnostic when failing to remove a file
    owned by someone else in a sticky directory [introduced in 4.1.9]
* df now rounds all quantities up, as per POSIX.
* New ls time style: long-iso, which generates YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
* Any time style can be preceded by "posix-"; this causes "ls" to
  use traditional timestamp format when in the POSIX locale.
* The default time style is now posix-long-iso instead of posix-iso.
  Set TIME_STYLE="posix-iso" to revert to the behavior of 4.1.1 thru 4.1.9.
* `rm dangling-symlink' doesn't prompt [introduced in 4.1.9]
* stat: remove support for --secure/-s option and related %S and %C format specs
* stat: rename --link/-l to --dereference/-L.
    The old options will continue to work for a while.
[4.1.9]
* rm can now remove very deep hierarchies, in spite of any limit on stack size
* new programs: link, unlink, and stat
* New ls option: --author (for the Hurd).
* `touch -c no-such-file' no longer fails, per POSIX
[4.1.8]
* mv no longer mistakenly creates links to preexisting destination files
    that aren't moved
[4.1.7]
* rm: close a hole that would allow a running rm process to be subverted
[4.1.6]
* New cp option: --copy-contents.
* cp -r is now equivalent to cp -R.  Use cp -R -L --copy-contents to get the
  traditional (and rarely desirable) cp -r behavior.
* ls now accepts --time-style=+FORMAT, where +FORMAT works like date's format
* The obsolete usage `touch [-acm] MMDDhhmm[YY] FILE...' is no longer
  supported on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001.  Use touch -t instead.
* cp and inter-partition mv no longer give a misleading diagnostic in some
    unusual cases
[4.1.5]
* cp -r no longer preserves symlinks
* The block size notation is now compatible with SI and with IEC 60027-2.
  For example, --block-size=1MB now means --block-size=1000000,
  whereas --block-size=1MiB now means --block-size=1048576.
  A missing `B' (e.g. `1M') has the same meaning as before.
  A trailing `B' now means decimal, not binary; this is a silent change.
  The nonstandard `D' suffix (e.g. `1MD') is now obsolescent.
* -H or --si now outputs the trailing 'B', for consistency with the above.
* Programs now output trailing 'K' (not 'k') to mean 1024, as per IEC 60027-2.
* New df, du short option -B is short for --block-size.
* You can omit an integer `1' before a block size suffix,
  e.g. `df -BG' is equivalent to `df -B 1G' and to `df --block-size=1G'.
* The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
  incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
   df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
   df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)
[4.1.4]
* df --local no longer lists smbfs file systems whose name starts with //
* dd now detects the Linux/tape/lseek bug at run time and warns about it.
[4.1.3]
* ls -R once again outputs a blank line between per-directory groups of files.
    This was broken by the cycle-detection change in 4.1.1.
* dd once again uses `lseek' on character devices like /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
    On systems with the linux kernel (at least up to 2.4.16), dd must still
    resort to emulating `skip=N' behavior using reads on tape devices, because
    lseek has no effect, yet appears to succeed.  This may be a kernel bug.
[4.1.2]
* cp no longer fails when two or more source files are the same;
    now it just gives a warning and doesn't copy the file the second time.
    E.g., cp a a d/ produces this:
    cp: warning: source file `a' specified more than once
* chmod would set the wrong bit when given symbolic mode strings like
    these: g=o, o=g, o=u.  E.g., `chmod a=,o=w,ug=o f' would give a mode
    of --w-r---w- rather than --w--w--w-.
[4.1.1]
* mv (likewise for cp), now fails rather than silently clobbering one of
    the source files in the following example:
    rm -rf a b c; mkdir a b c; touch a/f b/f; mv a/f b/f c
* ls -R detects directory cycles, per POSIX.  It warns and doesn't infloop.
* cp's -P option now means the same as --no-dereference, per POSIX.
    Use --parents to get the old meaning.
* When copying with the -H and -L options, cp can preserve logical
    links between source files with --preserve=links
* cp accepts new options:
    --preserve[={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}]
    --no-preserve={mode,ownership,timestamps,links,all}
* cp's -p and --preserve options remain unchanged and are equivalent
    to `--preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps'
* mv and cp accept a new option: --reply={yes,no,query};  provides a consistent
    mechanism to control whether one is prompted about certain existing
    destination files.  Note that cp's and mv's -f options don't have the
    same meaning: cp's -f option no longer merely turns off `-i'.
* remove portability limitations (e.g., PATH_MAX on the Hurd, fixes for
    64-bit systems)
* mv now prompts before overwriting an existing, unwritable destination file
    when stdin is a tty, unless --force (-f) is specified, as per POSIX.
* mv: fix the bug whereby `mv -uf source dest' would delete source,
    even though it's older than dest.
* chown's --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP option now works
* cp now ensures that the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits are cleared for
    the destination file when when copying and not preserving permissions.
* `ln -f --backup k k' gives a clearer diagnostic
* ls no longer truncates user names or group names that are longer
    than 8 characters.
* ls's new --dereference-command-line option causes it to dereference
  symbolic links on the command-line only.  It is the default unless
  one of the -d, -F, or -l options are given.
* ls -H now means the same as ls --dereference-command-line, as per POSIX.
* ls -g now acts like ls -l, except it does not display owner, as per POSIX.
* ls -n now implies -l, as per POSIX.
* ls can now display dates and times in one of four time styles:

  - The `full-iso' time style gives full ISO-style time stamps like
    `2001-05-14 23:45:56.477817180 -0700'.
  - The 'iso' time style gives ISO-style time stamps like '2001-05-14 '
    and '05-14 23:45'.
  - The 'locale' time style gives locale-dependent time stamps like
    'touko  14  2001' and 'touko  14 23:45' (in a Finnish locale).
  - The 'posix-iso' time style gives traditional POSIX-locale
    time stamps like 'May 14  2001' and 'May 14 23:45' unless the user
    specifies a non-POSIX locale, in which case it uses ISO-style dates.
    This is the default.

  You can specify a time style with an option like --time-style='iso'
  or with an environment variable like TIME_STYLE='iso'.  GNU Emacs 21
  and later can parse ISO dates, but older Emacs versions cannot, so
  if you are using an older version of Emacs outside the default POSIX
  locale, you may need to set TIME_STYLE="locale".

* --full-time is now an alias for "-l --time-style=full-iso".


========================================================================
Here are the NEWS entries made from sh-utils-2.0 until the
point at which the packages merged to form the coreutils:

 [2.0.15]
* date no longer accepts e.g., September 31 in the MMDDhhmm syntax
* fix a bug in this package's .m4 files and in configure.ac
 [2.0.14]
* nohup's behavior is changed as follows, to conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001:
  - nohup no longer adjusts scheduling priority; use "nice" for that.
  - nohup now redirects stderr to stdout, if stderr is not a terminal.
  - nohup exit status is now 126 if command was found but not invoked,
    127 if nohup failed or if command was not found.
 [2.0.13]
* uname and uptime work better on *BSD systems
* pathchk now exits nonzero for a path with a directory component
    that specifies a non-directory
 [2.0.12]
* kill: new program
* who accepts new options: --all (-a), --boot (-b), --dead (-d), --login,
   --process (-p), --runlevel (-r), --short (-s), --time (-t), --users (-u).
   The -u option now produces POSIX-specified results and is the same as
   the long option `--users'.  --idle is no longer the same as -u.
* The following changes apply on systems conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001,
  and are required by the new POSIX standard:
   - `date -I' is no longer supported.  Instead, use `date --iso-8601'.
   - `nice -NUM' is no longer supported.  Instead, use `nice -n NUM'.
* New 'uname' options -i or --hardware-platform, and -o or --operating-system.
   'uname -a' now outputs -i and -o information at the end.
   New uname option --kernel-version is an alias for -v.
   Uname option --release has been renamed to --kernel-release,
   and --sysname has been renamed to --kernel-name;
   the old options will work for a while, but are no longer documented.
* 'expr' now uses the LC_COLLATE locale for string comparison, as per POSIX.
* 'expr' now requires '+' rather than 'quote' to quote tokens;
    this removes an incompatibility with POSIX.
* date -d 'last friday' would print a date/time that was one hour off
    (e.g., 23:00 on *thursday* rather than 00:00 of the preceding friday)
    when run such that the current time and the target date/time fall on
    opposite sides of a daylight savings time transition.
    This problem arose only with relative date strings like `last monday'.
    It was not a problem with strings that include absolute dates.
* factor is twice as fast, for large numbers
 [2.0.11]
* setting the date now works properly, even when using -u
* `date -f - < /dev/null' no longer dumps core
* some DOS/Windows portability changes
 [2.0j]
* `date -d DATE' now parses certain relative DATEs correctly
 [2.0i]
* fixed a bug introduced in 2.0h that made many programs fail with a
 `write error' when invoked with the --version option
 [2.0h]
* all programs fail when printing --help or --version output to a full device
* printf exits nonzero upon write failure
* yes now detects and terminates upon write failure
* date --rfc-822 now always emits day and month names from the `C' locale
* portability tweaks for Solaris8, Ultrix, and DOS
 [2.0g]
* date now handles two-digit years with leading zeros correctly.
* printf interprets unicode, \uNNNN \UNNNNNNNN, on systems with the
  required support;  from Bruno Haible.
* stty's rprnt attribute now works on HPUX 10.20
* seq's --equal-width option works more portably
 [2.0f]
* fix build problems with ut_name vs. ut_user
 [2.0e]
* stty: fix long-standing bug that caused test failures on at least HPUX
  systems when COLUMNS was set to zero
* still more portability fixes
* unified lib/: now that directory and most of the configuration framework
  is common between fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
 [2.0d]
* fix portability problem with sleep vs lib/strtod.c's requirement for -lm
 [2.0c]
* fix portability problems with nanosleep.c and with the new code in sleep.c
 [2.0b]
* Regenerate lib/Makefile.in so that nanosleep.c is distributed.
 [2.0a]
* sleep accepts floating point arguments on command line
* sleep's clock continues counting down when sleep is suspended
* when a suspended sleep process is resumed, it continues sleeping if
  there is any time remaining
* who once again prints whatever host information it has, even without --lookup

========================================================================
For older NEWS entries for the fileutils, textutils, and sh-utils
packages, see ./old/*/NEWS.

  This package began as the union of the following:
  textutils-2.1, fileutils-4.1.11, sh-utils-2.0.15.