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Appendix A Changes
******************
This appendix lists some important user-visible changes between version
GNU 'tar' 1.26 and previous versions. An up-to-date version of this
document is available at the GNU 'tar' documentation page
(http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/changes.html).
Use of globbing patterns when listing and extracting.
Note: Following is true for original unpatched GNU tar. For
compatibility reasons, the old behavior was preserved.
Previous versions of GNU tar assumed shell-style globbing when
extracting from or listing an archive. For example:
$ tar xf foo.tar '*.c'
would extract all files whose names end in '.c'. This behavior was
not documented and was incompatible with traditional tar
implementations. Therefore, starting from version 1.15.91, GNU tar
no longer uses globbing by default. For example, the above
invocation is now interpreted as a request to extract from the
archive the file named '*.c'.
To facilitate transition to the new behavior for those users who
got used to the previous incorrect one, 'tar' will print a warning
if it finds out that a requested member was not found in the
archive and its name looks like a globbing pattern. For example:
$ tar xf foo.tar '*.c'
tar: Pattern matching characters used in file names. Please,
tar: use --wildcards to enable pattern matching, or --no-wildcards to
tar: suppress this warning.
tar: *.c: Not found in archive
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
To treat member names as globbing patterns, use the '--wildcards'
option. If you want to tar to mimic the behavior of versions prior
to 1.15.91, add this option to your 'TAR_OPTIONS' variable.
wildcards, for the detailed discussion of the use of
globbing patterns by GNU 'tar'.
Use of short option '-o'.
Earlier versions of GNU 'tar' understood '-o' command line option
as a synonym for '--old-archive'.
GNU 'tar' starting from version 1.13.90 understands this option as
a synonym for '--no-same-owner'. This is compatible with UNIX98
'tar' implementations.
However, to facilitate transition, '-o' option retains its old
semantics when it is used with one of archive-creation commands.
Users are encouraged to use '--format=oldgnu' instead.
It is especially important, since versions of GNU Automake up to
and including 1.8.4 invoke tar with this option to produce
distribution tarballs. v7 Formats, for the detailed
discussion of this issue and its implications.
tar-formats (automake)Options, for a description on how to
use various archive formats with 'automake'.
Future versions of GNU 'tar' will understand '-o' only as a synonym
for '--no-same-owner'.
Use of short option '-l'
Earlier versions of GNU 'tar' understood '-l' option as a synonym
for '--one-file-system'. Since such usage contradicted to UNIX98
specification and harmed compatibility with other implementations,
it was declared deprecated in version 1.14. However, to facilitate
transition to its new semantics, it was supported by versions 1.15
and 1.15.90. The present use of '-l' as a short variant of
'--check-links' was introduced in version 1.15.91.
Use of options '--portability' and '--old-archive'
These options are deprecated. Please use '--format=v7' instead.
Use of option '--posix'
This option is deprecated. Please use '--format=posix' instead.
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