source: trunk/essentials/sys-apps/coreutils/NEWS@ 3044

GNU coreutils NEWS                                    -*- outline -*-

* Major changes in release 5.94 (2006-02-13) [stable]

** Feature changes

  df now considers "none" and "proc" file systems to be dummies and
  therefore does not normally display them.  Also, inaccessible file
  systems (which can be caused by shadowed mount points or by chrooted
  bind mounts) are now dummies, too.

  stat's --format=FMT option now works the way it did before 5.3.0:
  FMT is automatically newline terminated.  The first stable release
  containing this change was 5.92.

  stat accepts the new option --printf=PFMT, where PFMT is *not* automatically
  newline terminated.  Backslash escapes in PFMT *are* interpreted.

  stat: backslash escapes are interpreted in a format string specified
  via --printf=FMT, but not one specified via --format=FMT.  That includes
  octal (\ooo, at most three octal digits), hexadecimal (\xhh, one or
  two hex digits), and the standard sequences (\a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t,
  \v, \", \\).

** Bug fixes

  When `cp -RL' encounters the same directory more than once in the
  hierarchy beneath a single command-line argument, it no longer confuses
  them with hard-linked directories.

  fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer fail due to
  a double-free bug -- it could be triggered by making a directory
  inaccessible while e.g., du is traversing the hierarchy under it.

  fts-using tools (chmod, chown, chgrp, du) no longer misinterpret
  a very long symlink chain as a dangling symlink.  Before, such a
  misinterpretation would cause these tools not to diagnose an ELOOP error.

  sort would fail for large inputs (~50MB) on systems with a buggy
  mkstemp function.  sort and tac now use the replacement mkstemp
  function, and hence are no longer subject to limitations (of 26 or 32,
  on the maximum number of files from a given template) on HP-UX 10.20,
  SunOS 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5.1 and OSF1/Tru64 V4.0F&V5.1.

  tail -f once again works on a file with the append-only
  attribute (affects at least Linux ext2, ext3, xfs file systems)


* Major changes in release 5.93 (2005-11-06) [stable]

** Bug fixes

  dircolors no longer segfaults upon an attempt to use the new
  STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE (OWT) attribute

  du no longer overflows a counter when processing a file larger than
  2^31-1 on some 32-bit systems (at least some AIX 5.1 configurations).

  md5sum once again defaults to using the ` ' non-binary marker
  (rather than the `*' binary marker) by default on Unix-like systems.

  mkdir -p and install -d no longer exit nonzero when asked to create
  a directory like `nonexistent/.'

  rm emits a better diagnostic when (without -r) it fails to remove
  a directory on e.g., Solaris 9/10 systems.

  tac now works when stdin is a tty, even on non-Linux systems

  "tail -c 2 FILE" and "touch 0101000000" now operate as POSIX
  1003.1-2001 requires, even when coreutils is conforming to older
  POSIX standards, as the newly-required behavior is upward-compatible
  with the old.

** Build-related bug fixes

  installing .mo files would fail


* Major changes in release 5.92 (2005-10-22) [stable]

** Bug fixes

  chmod now diagnoses an invalid mode string starting with an octal digit

  dircolors now properly quotes single-quote characters

* Major changes in release 5.91 (2005-10-17) [stable candidate]

** Bug fixes

  "mkdir -p /a/b/c" no longer fails merely because a leading prefix
  directory (e.g., /a or /a/b) exists on a read-only file system.

** Removed options

  tail's --allow-missing option has been removed.  Use --retry instead.

  stat's --link and -l options have been removed.
  Use --dereference (-L) instead.

** Deprecated options

  Using ls, du, or df with the --kilobytes option now evokes a warning
  that the long-named option is deprecated.  Use `-k' instead.

  du's long-named --megabytes option now evokes a warning.
  Use -m instead.


* Major changes in release 5.90 (2005-09-29) [unstable]

** Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
  conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001.  The following changes apply only
  when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
  conforming to older POSIX versions.

  The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:

    date -I
    expand -TAB1[,TAB2,...]
    fold -WIDTH
    head -NUM
    join -j FIELD
    join -j1 FIELD
    join -j2 FIELD
    join -o FIELD_NAME1 FIELD_NAME2...
    nice -NUM
    od -w
    pr -S
    split -NUM
    tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]

  The following usages no longer work, due to the above changes:

    date -I TIMESPEC  (use `date -ITIMESPEC' instead)
    od -w WIDTH       (use `od -wWIDTH' instead)
    pr -S STRING      (use `pr -SSTRING' instead)

  A few usages still have behavior that depends on which POSIX standard is
  being conformed to, and portable applications should beware these
  problematic usages.  These include:

    Problematic       Standard-conforming replacement, depending on
       usage            whether you prefer the behavior of:
                      POSIX 1003.2-1992    POSIX 1003.1-2001
    sort +4           sort -k 5            sort ./+4
    tail +4           tail -n +4           tail ./+4
    tail - f          tail f               [see (*) below]
    tail -c 4         tail -c 10 ./4       tail -c4
    touch 12312359 f  touch -t 12312359 f  touch ./12312359 f
    uniq +4           uniq -s 4            uniq ./+4

    (*) "tail - f" does not conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001; to read
    standard input and then "f", use the command "tail -- - f".

  These changes are in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
  Austin Group standardization meeting.  For more details, please see
  "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
  Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.

** Binary input and output are now implemented more consistently.
  These changes affect only platforms like MS-DOS that distinguish