coreutils-6.8 released (not-unstable test release)

[Jim Meyering]

Coreutils version 6.8 has been released.

If you haven't heard about the GNU coreutils, the FAQ is a good
place to start: http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/

This is mostly a bug-fix release, but with a significant
batch of infrastructure changes coming in through gnulib.
Since some of those changes are so new, I've labeled this a
test release, but as the subject implies, I believe this
release is better than "unstable".

Thanks to all of the people who have contributed patches, suggestions,
and bug reports.  Their names are listed in the ChangeLog files.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Here are the compressed sources:
  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-6.8.tar.gz   (7.7MB)
  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-6.8.tar.bz2   (5.2MB)

Here are the xdelta-style diffs:
  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-6.7-6.8.xdelta   (816KB)

Here are the GPG detached signatures[*]:
  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-6.8.tar.gz.sig
  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-6.8.tar.bz2.sig

Here are the MD5 and SHA1 checksums:

76a8f1a9985cfe925f6fbfb84db9b706  coreutils-6.8.tar.gz
85d40c5fa6b42aec4596e6aaae0ec4ee  coreutils-6.8.tar.bz2
aac36824b75af4d059abc5166a8b170c  coreutils-6.7-6.8.xdelta
a816624f710699341f748cab5f81223667279d80  coreutils-6.8.tar.gz
83b221bfb030489c3c9abf705592f9a78ea0fbec  coreutils-6.8.tar.bz2
4c572fb4d1be303ca86ed1dffea3abea58909bff  coreutils-6.7-6.8.xdelta

[*] 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-6.8.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 wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys D333CBA1

and rerun the `gpg --verify' command.

This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:
  Autoconf 2.61a
  Automake 1.10
  Bison 2.3a
  CVS Gnulib sources from 2007-02-24 18:43:15 +0000


*****************
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-6.8.tar.gz | tar xf -
   cd coreutils-6.8
   ./configure
   make
   make -k check >& log
   grep FAIL log

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.

For further reading, see the coreutils home page
  http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/
and the FAQ list:
  http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/


*****************
NEWS
*****************
* Noteworthy changes in release 6.8 (2007-02-24) [not-unstable]

** Bug fixes

  chgrp, chmod, and chown now honor the --preserve-root option.
  Before, they would warn, yet continuing traversing and operating on /.

  chmod no longer fails in an environment (e.g., a chroot) with openat
  support but with insufficient /proc support.

  "cp --parents F/G D" no longer creates a directory D/F when F is not
  a directory (and F/G is therefore invalid).

  "cp --preserve=mode" would create directories that briefly had
  too-generous permissions in some cases.  For example, when copying a
  directory with permissions 777 the destination directory might
  temporarily be setgid on some file systems, which would allow other
  users to create subfiles with the same group as the directory.  Fix
  similar problems with 'install' and 'mv'.

  cut no longer dumps core for usage like "cut -f2- f1 f2" with two or
  more file arguments.  This was due to a double-free bug, introduced
  in coreutils-5.3.0.

  dd bs= operands now silently override any later ibs= and obs=
  operands, as POSIX and tradition require.

  "ls -FRL" always follows symbolic links on Linux.  Introduced in
  coreutils-6.0.

  A cross-partition "mv /etc/passwd ~" (by non-root) now prints
  a reasonable diagnostic.  Before, it would print this:
  "mv: cannot remove `/etc/passwd': Not a directory".

  pwd and "readlink -e ." no longer fail unnecessarily when a parent
  directory is unreadable.

  "rm -rf /etc/passwd" (run by non-root) now prints a diagnostic.
  Before it would print nothing.

  "rm --interactive=never F" no longer prompts for an unwritable F

** New features

  sort's new --compress-program=PROG option specifies a compression
  program to use when writing and reading temporary files.
  This can help save both time and disk space when sorting large inputs.

  sort accepts the new option -C, which acts like -c except no diagnostic
  is printed.  Its --check option now accepts an optional argument, and
  --check=quiet and --check=silent are now aliases for -C, while
  --check=diagnose-first is an alias for -c or plain --check.

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