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:
1
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'.
1
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'
1
1 These options are deprecated. Please use '--format=v7' instead.
1
1 Use of option '--posix'
1
1 This option is deprecated. Please use '--format=posix' instead.
1