coreutils-7.1 released [stable]

[Jim Meyering]

This is to announce coreutils-7.1, a release we're calling "stable",
because we think it's solid enough for general use.

For a summary of changes and contributors, see:
  http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git;a=shortlog;h=v7.1
or run this command from a git-cloned coreutils directory:
  git shortlog v7.0..v7.1

To summarize the gnulib-related changes, run this command from a
git-cloned gnulib directory:
  git shortlog v0.0-1166-g785dc8b..v0.0-1748-gcdfa689

Coreutils 7.0, released 4.5 months ago, was classified as "beta"[1],
due to the number and character of its changes.  It had many new features
and two new programs.  Since 7.0, there have been almost 200 change-
sets (nearly as many as from 6.12 to 7.0), but of a more conservative
nature overall.

Portability note:
With this release we've stopped catering to pre-c99 compilers, in that
we no longer maintain the c99-to-c89.diff file mentioned in README.
we'll continue to distribute that file for a while longer.  The benefit
(code readability, my sanity, etc.) of using declarations-after-statements
alone far outweighs the miniscule portability penalty of no longer
supporting a few very old compilers.  It was not worthwhile for me to
keep that patch-set up to date.

Administrative note: coreutils' has two new co-maintainers:
Pádraig Brady and Eric Blake.  Thank them for accepting.

Distribution note: new suffix, ".xz" replaces ".lzma".
Note the better-compressed tar ball name below has the ".xz" suffix.
XZ Utils (new name for the improved format/tools) is the successor to lzma.
For more info, see http://tukaani.org/xz/

------------
[1] For the coreutils-7.0 release announcement, see this:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.core-utils.announce/47


Here are the compressed sources:
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-7.1.tar.gz   (9.2MB)
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-7.1.tar.xz   (3.8MB)

Here are the GPG detached signatures[*]:
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-7.1.tar.gz.sig
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-7.1.tar.xz.sig

[*] You can use either of the above signature files to verify that
the corresponding file (without the .sig suffix) is intact.  First,
be sure to download both the .sig file and the corresponding tarball.
Then, run a command like this:

  gpg --verify coreutils-7.1.tar.xz.sig

If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
then run this command to import it:

  gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys B9AB9A16

and rerun the `gpg --verify' command.

This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:
  Autoconf 2.63.277-be5e
  Automake 1.10a
  Bison 2.4
  Gnulib v0.0-1748-gcdfa689

*****************
How can you help?
*****************
If you're interested in lending a hand, or just want to use
the latest versions right now, you can build these programs
and run the test suite like this:

   gzip -dc coreutils-7.1.tar.gz | tar xf -
   cd coreutils-7.1
   ./configure
   make
   make -k check >& log
   grep FAIL log

[If you downloaded the much-smaller .xz tarball, then just
 substitute this for the gzip... line above:
   xz -dc coreutils-7.1.tar.xz | tar xf -
 If you don't have "xz" installed yet, first try getting it via
 your distribution, e.g., "aptitude install xz" or "yum install xz"]

Be sure to use make's -k option so that make doesn't stop
just because one of the earlier tests fails.
Please report any build problems or test failures to the
address@hidden mailing list.
There are detailed instructions in the `Reporting bugs:' section
of the README file.

**************************
NEWS (since coreutils-7.0)
**************************

* Noteworthy changes in release 7.1 (2009-02-21) [stable]

** New features

  Add extended attribute support available on certain filesystems like ext2
  and XFS.
    cp: Tries to copy xattrs when --preserve=xattr or --preserve=all specified
    mv: Always tries to copy xattrs
    install: Never copies xattrs

  cp and mv accept a new option, --no-clobber (-n): silently refrain
  from overwriting any existing destination file

  dd accepts iflag=cio and oflag=cio to open the file in CIO (concurrent I/O)
  mode where this feature is available.

  install accepts a new option, --compare (-C): compare each pair of source
  and destination files, and if the destination has identical content and
  any specified owner, group, permissions, and possibly SELinux context, then
  do not modify the destination at all.

  ls --color now highlights hard linked files, too

  stat -f recognizes the Lustre file system type

** Bug fixes

  chgrp, chmod, chown --silent (--quiet, -f) no longer print some diagnostics
  [bug introduced in coreutils-5.1]

  cp uses much less memory in some situations

  cp -a now correctly tries to preserve SELinux context (announced in 6.9.90),
  doesn't inform about failure, unlike with --preserve=all

  du --files0-from=FILE no longer reads all of FILE into RAM before
  processing the first file name

  seq 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775808 now prints only two numbers
  on systems with extended long double support and good library support.
  Even with this patch, on some systems, it still produces invalid output,
  from 3 to at least 1026 lines long. [bug introduced in coreutils-6.11]

  seq -w now accounts for a decimal point added to the last number
  to correctly print all numbers to the same width.

  wc --files0-from=FILE no longer reads all of FILE into RAM, before
  processing the first file name, unless the list of names is known
  to be small enough.

** Changes in behavior

  cp and mv: the --reply={yes,no,query} option has been removed.
  Using it has elicited a warning for the last three years.

  dd: user specified offsets that are too big are handled better.
  Previously, erroneous parameters to skip and seek could result
  in redundant reading of the file with no warnings or errors.

  du: -H (initially equivalent to --si) is now equivalent to
  --dereference-args, and thus works as POSIX requires

  shred: now does 3 overwrite passes by default rather than 25.

  ls -l now marks SELinux-only files with the less obtrusive '.',
  rather than '+'.  A file with any other combination of MAC and ACL
  is still marked with a '+'.

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