Announcing the release of version 4.3.9 of GNU findutils

[James Youngman]

I announce the release of version 4.3.9 of GNU findutils.

GNU findutils is a set of software tools for finding files that match
certain criteria and for performing various operations on them.
Findutils includes the programs "find", "xargs" and "locate".  More
information about findutils is available at
http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/.

This is a "development" release of findutils.  It can be downloaded
from  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/findutils.  The 4.3.x release series is
intended to allow people to try out, comment on or contribute to new
features of findutils.  During the 4.3.x release series some features
may be introduced and then changed or removed as a result of feedback
or experience.  In short, please don't rely on backward compatibility
later in the release series.

While this is a development release, it is tested before being
released, principally with the regression test suite (run "make check"
to use it).  The Savannah website
(http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils) contains a current
list of known bugs in findutils (for both the stable and development
branches).

This release is primarily a bugfix release.  All the changes since the
previous release are summarised below.

Bugs in GNU findutils should be reported to the findutils bug tracker
at http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils.  Reporting bugs via
the web interface will ensure that you are automatically informed when
the bug has been fixed.  General discussion of findutils takes place
on the bug-findutils mailing list.  To join the 'bug-findutils'
mailing list, send email to <address@hidden>.

To verify the GPG signature of the release, you will need the public
key of the findutils maintainer, James Youngman.  You can download
this from http://savannah.gnu.org/users/jay.  Alternatively, you
could query a PGP keyserver, but you will need to use one that can
cope with subkeys containing photos.  Many older key servers cannot do
this.  I use subkeys.pgp.net.  I think that one works.  See also the
"Downloading" section of http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/.

I would like to thank Eric Blake for his contributions to findutils
generally, and in particular for the work that he put into this
release.


* Major changes in release 4.3.9, 2007-11-11

** Licensing

Findutils version 4.3.9 is released under version 3 of the GNU General
Public License.

** Bug Fixes

#20834: Avoid segmentation violation for -execdir when $PATH is
unset.  Assume that the PATH is safe in this situation.

#20310: configure uses hosts's support status for "sort -z" when
generating the updatedb script for use on the target.  This is
inappropriate when cross-compiling, so avoid doing that.

#20263: Compilation fix for DEC Alpha OSF/1 cc, which forbids the
ordering comparison of function pointers.

#20139: find -[acm]time -N (wrongly) includes files from N days ago,
as well as (correctly) from less than N days ago.

#20273: When xargs is successful without consuming all of stdin (for
example, with the -E option), and stdin is seekable, xargs now
correctly restores the file position, even on platforms where exit()
does not follow the POSIX rules of doing likewise.  Likewise for find
(for example, with the -ok action).

#20547: The version information printed by find, xargs, locate,
updatedb, frcode and code now complies with the GNU Project's coding
standards.

#20662: Avoid memory leak in find -name and other places affected by
gnulib dirname module.  The leak had been present since 4.3.1.

#20751: Avoid memory corruption in find -ls that has been present
since 4.3.1.

#20871: Assertion failure introduced in 4.3.3, when oldfind is invoked
in a directory where the parent directory lacks search permission.

** Enhancements

#20594: Allow fine-tuning of the default argument size used by xargs
and find at ./configure time.

#20688: The warning printed by -name or -iname when the pattern to
match contains a slash can now be silenced by -nowarn.  This warning
was originally introduced unconditionally in 4.2.21.

Translation of locate --limit problems is improved.

POSIX will standardise -path, so the documentation no longer claims
that -wholename is the 'canonical' test, and -ipath no longer
generates a warning.

** Documentation Fixes

Point out more explicitly that the subsecond timestamp support
introduced by findutils-4.3.3 introduces a change in the format of
several fields.

Also explain that when reporting a bug, you should check the most
recent findutils release first.

Introduced doc/find-maint.texi, a maintenance manual for findutils.

Added an extra worked example for find (copying a subset of files).

The locate command's manual page now has a HISTORY section.

#20951: Very bad/unclear/confusing documentation of security checks in
find -execdir

#20865: Better documentation on the fact that -delete implies -depth
and that -delete interacts badly with -prune.

#20552: Fixed typos, formatting and section ordering issues in the
find manual page.

#20529: removed spurious 'o' in description of "xargs -a" in
doc/find.texi.

#20232: The --max-database-age option of locate was added in release
4.3.3, but this file (NEWS) did not previously mention this fact.

** Translations

Updated Dutch and Hungarian translations.

--
James Youngman <address@hidden>
GNU findutils maintainer