Re: coreutils-8.18: ready for release?

[Jim Meyering]

Jim Meyering wrote:

> Now that util-linux has made a v2.22-rc release with improved "su"[1],
> I'd like to make a coreutils release (which removes su altogether).
>
> There's enough new code in md5sum --tag that I will defer
> adding that feature until after 8.18.
>
> I've just remembered that I have one more minor tail fix, and I'll
> post that shortly.  And I'll have to update to latest gnulib
> and address a new FP syntax-check failure that induces.
> Does anyone else have something to add?
>
>
> [1] As you may recall, I was ready to release a month or so ago, but
> since this release removes su.c altogether, we decided to wait for su
> in util-linux to get all the required features.

As always, the NEWS is here,

  http://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/NEWS

Here's a list of the entries since 8.17:

** Bug fixes

  cksum now prints checksums atomically so that concurrent
  processes will not intersperse their output.
  [the bug dates back to the initial implementation]

  date -d "$(printf '\xb0')" would print 00:00:00 with today's date
  rather than diagnosing the invalid input.  Now it reports this:
  date: invalid date '\260'
  [This bug was present in "the beginning".]

  df no longer outputs control characters present in the mount point name.
  Such characters are replaced with '?', so for example, scripts consuming
  lines output by df, can work reliably.
  [This bug was present in "the beginning".]

  head --lines=-N (-n-N) now resets the read pointer of a seekable input file.
  This means that "head -n-3" no longer consumes all of its input, and lines
  not output by head may be processed by other programs.  For example, this
  command now prints the final line, 2, while before it would print nothing:
    seq 2 > k; (head -n-1 > /dev/null; cat) < k
  [This bug was present in "the beginning".]

  ls --color would mis-color relative-named symlinks in /
  [bug introduced in coreutils-8.17]

  split now ensures it doesn't overwrite the input file with generated output.
  [the bug dates back to the initial implementation]

  stat and df now report the correct file system usage,
  in all situations on GNU/Linux, by correctly determining the block size.
  [df bug since coreutils-5.0.91, stat bug since the initial implementation]

  tail -f no longer tries to use inotify on AUFS or PanFS file systems
  [you might say this was introduced in coreutils-7.5, along with inotify
   support, but even now, its magic number isn't in the usual place.]

** New features

  stat -f recognizes the new remote file system types: aufs, panfs.

** Changes in behavior

  su: this program has been removed.  We stopped installing "su" by
  default with the release of coreutils-6.9.90 on 2007-12-01.  Now,
  that the util-linux package has the union of the Suse and Fedora
  patches as well as enough support to build on the Hurd, we no longer
  have any reason to include it here.

** Improvements

  sort avoids redundant processing in the presence of inaccessible inputs,
  or unwritable output.  Sort now diagnoses certain errors at start-up,
  rather than after potentially expensive processing.

  sort now allocates no more than 75% of physical memory by default,
  to better share system resources, and thus operate more efficiently.
  [The default max memory usage changed from 50% to 100% in coreutils-8.16]