[Bug-tar] tar-1.29 released [stable]

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Hello,

I am pleased to inform you that the new stable release of GNU tar is
available for download.  See the end of this message for the list of
new features in this release.

Here are the compressed sources:
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.29.tar.gz   (3.8MB)
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.29.tar.bz2  (2.6MB)
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.29.tar.xz   (2.0MB)
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.29.cpio.gz  (3.8MB)

Here are the GPG detached signatures[*]:
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.29.tar.gz.sig
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.29.tar.bz2.sig
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.29.tar.xz.sig
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.29.cpio.gz.sig

Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
  http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html

Here are the MD5 and SHA1 checksums:

c57bd3e50e43151442c1995f6236b6e9  tar-1.29.tar.gz
955cd533955acb1804b83fd70218da51  tar-1.29.tar.bz2
a1802fec550baaeecff6c381629653ef  tar-1.29.tar.xz
dad021fcdf012be206a0e9356edd6b52  tar-1.29.cpio.gz
73b694191c802e1bda5ec4fce5aae26d4134412f  tar-1.29.tar.gz
057977c86293fddcbb04075ca70f41079e044949  tar-1.29.tar.bz2
03851c34c90f0656177f2dd375cd61bd1204c51d  tar-1.29.tar.xz
9c1fa13fa5c50e7cc54052cf62a74d8afc0f7a3a  tar-1.29.cpio.gz

[*] Use a .sig file 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 tar-1.29.tar.gz.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 55D0C732

and rerun the 'gpg --verify' command.

This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:

  Autoconf 2.69
  Automake 1.14
  Makeinfo 5.9.93
  Gnulib v0.1-538-g1029a81

Noteworthy changes in this release:

* New options: --verbatim-files-from, --no-verbatim-files-from

The --verbatim-files-from option instructs tar to treat each line read
from a file list as a file name, even if it starts with a dash.

File lists are supplied with the --files-from (-T) option.  By
default, each line read from a file list is first stripped off the
leading and trailing whitespace and, if the result begins with a dash,
it is treated as tar command line option.

Use the --verbatim-files-from option to disable this special handling.
This facilitates the use of tar with file lists created automatically
(e.g. by find(1) command).

This option affects all --files-from options that occur after it in
the command line.  Its effect is reverted by the
--no-verbatim-files-from option.

* --null option reads file names verbatim

The --null option implies --verbatim-files-from.  I.e. each line
read from null-delimited file lists is treated as a file name.

This restores the documented behavior, which was broken in version
1.27.

* New options: --owner-map=FILE and --group-map=FILE

These two options provide fine-grained control over what user/group
names (or IDs) should be mapped when adding files to archive.

For both options, FILE is a plain text file with user or group
mappings.  Empty lines are ignored.  Comments are introduced with
# sign (unless quoted) and extend to the end of the corresponding
line.  Each non-empty line defines translation for a single UID (GID).
It must consist of two fields, delimited by any amount of whitespace:

     OLDNAME NEWNAME[:NEWID]

OLDNAME is either a valid user (group) name or a ID prefixed with +.
Unless NEWID is supplied, NEWNAME must also be either a valid name or a
+ID.  Otherwise, both NEWNAME and NEWID need not be listed in the system
user database.

* New option --clamp-mtime

The new --clamp-mtime option changes the behavior of --mtime to only
use the time specified if the file mtime is newer than the given time.
The --clamp-mtime option can only be used together with --mtime.

Typical use case is to make builds reproducible: to loose less
information, it's better to keep the original date of an archive,
except for files modified during the build process. In that case, using
reference (and thus reproducible) timestamps for the latter is good
enough.

See <https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds> for more information.

* Deprecated --preserve option removed

* Sparse file detection

Tar now uses SEEK_DATA/SEEK_HOLE on systems that support it.  This
allows for considerable speed-up in sparse-file detection.

New option --hole-detection is provided, that allows the user to
select the algorithm used for hole detection.  Available arguments
are:

  --hole-detection=seek
     Use lseek(2) SEEK_DATA and SEEK_HOLE "whence" parameters.

  --hole-detection=raw
     Scan entire file before storing it to determine where holes
     are located.

The default is to use "seek" whenever possible, and fall back to
"raw" otherwise.
                   
Best regards,
Sergey