tar: Changes

1 
1 Appendix A Changes
1 ******************
1 
1 This appendix lists some important user-visible changes between various
1 versions of GNU 'tar'.  An up-to-date version of this document is
1 available at the GNU 'tar' documentation page
1 (http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/changes.html).
1 
1 Use of globbing patterns when listing and extracting.
1 
1      Note: Following is true for original unpatched GNU tar.  For
1      compatibility reasons, the old behavior was preserved.
1 
1      Previous versions of GNU tar assumed shell-style globbing when
1      extracting from or listing an archive.  For example:
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1           $ tar xf foo.tar '*.c'
1 
1      would extract all files whose names end in '.c'.  This behavior was
1      not documented and was incompatible with traditional tar
1      implementations.  Therefore, starting from version 1.15.91, GNU tar
1      no longer uses globbing by default.  For example, the above
1      invocation is now interpreted as a request to extract from the
1      archive the file named '*.c'.
1 
1      To facilitate transition to the new behavior for those users who
1      got used to the previous incorrect one, 'tar' will print a warning
1      if it finds out that a requested member was not found in the
1      archive and its name looks like a globbing pattern.  For example:
1 
1           $ tar xf foo.tar  '*.c'
1           tar: Pattern matching characters used in file names. Please,
1           tar: use --wildcards to enable pattern matching, or --no-wildcards to
1           tar: suppress this warning.
1           tar: *.c: Not found in archive
1           tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
1 
1      To treat member names as globbing patterns, use the '--wildcards'
1      option.  If you want to tar to mimic the behavior of versions prior
1      to 1.15.91, add this option to your 'TAR_OPTIONS' variable.
1 
1      ⇒wildcards, for the detailed discussion of the use of
1      globbing patterns by GNU 'tar'.
1 
1 Use of short option '-o'.
1 
1      Earlier versions of GNU 'tar' understood '-o' command line option
1      as a synonym for '--old-archive'.
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1      GNU 'tar' starting from version 1.13.90 understands this option as
1      a synonym for '--no-same-owner'.  This is compatible with UNIX98
1      'tar' implementations.
1 
1      However, to facilitate transition, '-o' option retains its old
1      semantics when it is used with one of archive-creation commands.
1      Users are encouraged to use '--format=oldgnu' instead.
1 
1      It is especially important, since versions of GNU Automake up to
1      and including 1.8.4 invoke tar with this option to produce
1      distribution tarballs.  ⇒v7 Formats, for the detailed
1      discussion of this issue and its implications.
1 
1      ⇒tar-formats (automake)Options, for a description on how to
1      use various archive formats with 'automake'.
1 
1      Future versions of GNU 'tar' will understand '-o' only as a synonym
1      for '--no-same-owner'.
1 
1 Use of short option '-l'
1 
1      Earlier versions of GNU 'tar' understood '-l' option as a synonym
1      for '--one-file-system'.  Since such usage contradicted to UNIX98
1      specification and harmed compatibility with other implementations,
1      it was declared deprecated in version 1.14.  However, to facilitate
1      transition to its new semantics, it was supported by versions 1.15
1      and 1.15.90.  The present use of '-l' as a short variant of
1      '--check-links' was introduced in version 1.15.91.
1 
1 Use of options '--portability' and '--old-archive'
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1      These options are deprecated.  Please use '--format=v7' instead.
1 
1 Use of option '--posix'
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1      This option is deprecated.  Please use '--format=posix' instead.
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