Findutils 4.2.3 is released on alpha.gnu.org

[James Youngman]

I'm happy to announce the availability of findutils version 4.2.3 at
ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/findutils.  The NEWS file for this release
says :-

* Major changes in release 4.2.3
**  Functionality Changes
*** Added new action -delete which deletes things that find matches.
*** Added new action -quit which causes find to exit immediately.
*** A new format directive '%D' for "find -printf" prints the device number.
*** The -ls predicate no longer truncates user or group names.
*** Added new option "-d" which is a synonym for "-depth" for compatibility
    with Mac OS, OpenBSD and FreeBSD.  This option is already
    deprecated since the POSIX standard specifies "-depth".   
*** Added two new format specifiers to the -printf action; these are 
    %y and %Y.  They indicate the type of the file as a single letter;
    these are the same latters as are used by the "-type" test.
*** If a parent directory changes during the execution of find, 
    the error message we issue identifies the nature of the change
    (for example the previous and current inode numbers of the 
    directory we've just returned out of).
** Other Changes
*** Non-functional code changes to silence compiler warnings.


The following entries from the Savannah bug/support database have been
resolved by the upload of this release:-

bug     #3727   findutils-4.1.7 compilation errors with Intel icc 
bug     #10800  find: -ls option shows striped user/group name 
support #103035 Feature request: find -printf : new directive for file type 
support #102163 [PATCH] enhancement to print device id 

The following patches have either been applied, or are now duplicate
against changes already made :-

patch   #2194   printf file type %y%Y and full mode_t %M
patch   #2692   get_short, getstr - Buffer overflow, segmentation fault in 
getline.c 
patch   #2952   getline off-by-one bugfix 
patch   #3454   RFE: find -delete option 
patch   #3457   Fix compilation warnings 
patch   #3458   Fix error message (relating to FIND_BLOCK_SIZE)

Patch #2194 was partly applied; the %M feature was not included,
because although it was in effect an extension to the existing %m
directive to -printf, it isn't compatible with it on systems which
have a nontraditional permissions bit layout.

The software also currently builds successfully from CVS with Automake
versions 1.7, 1.8 and 1.9.  However, "make distcheck" currently fails
with Automake version 1.8 and above.  This is a problem with the "make
dist" target and isn't a bug in the installed software itself.

There have been several implementations of the -delete action floating
around as patches against findutils-4.1.x.  I have implemented a very
straightforward version.  Since part of the point of the -delete
action is to resolve security issues, it may be the case that there
are subtly security issues that I have failed to bear in mind when
adding this feature.  If you have a special interest in this area,
please send me some feedback about it.

Regards,
James Youngman