I announce the release of version 4.3.9 of GNU findutils. GNU findutils is a set of software tools for finding files that match certain criteria and for performing various operations on them. Findutils includes the programs "find", "xargs" and "locate". More information about findutils is available at http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/.
This is a "development" release of findutils. It can be downloaded from ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/findutils. The 4.3.x release series is intended to allow people to try out, comment on or contribute to new features of findutils. During the 4.3.x release series some features may be introduced and then changed or removed as a result of feedback or experience. In short, please don't rely on backward compatibility later in the release series. While this is a development release, it is tested before being released, principally with the regression test suite (run "make check" to use it). The Savannah website (http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils) contains a current list of known bugs in findutils (for both the stable and development branches). This release is primarily a bugfix release. All the changes since the previous release are summarised below. Bugs in GNU findutils should be reported to the findutils bug tracker at http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils. Reporting bugs via the web interface will ensure that you are automatically informed when the bug has been fixed. General discussion of findutils takes place on the bug-findutils mailing list. To join the 'bug-findutils' mailing list, send email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To verify the GPG signature of the release, you will need the public key of the findutils maintainer, James Youngman. You can download this from http://savannah.gnu.org/users/jay. Alternatively, you could query a PGP keyserver, but you will need to use one that can cope with subkeys containing photos. Many older key servers cannot do this. I use subkeys.pgp.net. I think that one works. See also the "Downloading" section of http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/. I would like to thank Eric Blake for his contributions to findutils generally, and in particular for the work that he put into this release. * Major changes in release 4.3.9, 2007-11-11 ** Licensing Findutils version 4.3.9 is released under version 3 of the GNU General Public License. ** Bug Fixes #20834: Avoid segmentation violation for -execdir when $PATH is unset. Assume that the PATH is safe in this situation. #20310: configure uses hosts's support status for "sort -z" when generating the updatedb script for use on the target. This is inappropriate when cross-compiling, so avoid doing that. #20263: Compilation fix for DEC Alpha OSF/1 cc, which forbids the ordering comparison of function pointers. #20139: find -[acm]time -N (wrongly) includes files from N days ago, as well as (correctly) from less than N days ago. #20273: When xargs is successful without consuming all of stdin (for example, with the -E option), and stdin is seekable, xargs now correctly restores the file position, even on platforms where exit() does not follow the POSIX rules of doing likewise. Likewise for find (for example, with the -ok action). #20547: The version information printed by find, xargs, locate, updatedb, frcode and code now complies with the GNU Project's coding standards. #20662: Avoid memory leak in find -name and other places affected by gnulib dirname module. The leak had been present since 4.3.1. #20751: Avoid memory corruption in find -ls that has been present since 4.3.1. #20871: Assertion failure introduced in 4.3.3, when oldfind is invoked in a directory where the parent directory lacks search permission. ** Enhancements #20594: Allow fine-tuning of the default argument size used by xargs and find at ./configure time. #20688: The warning printed by -name or -iname when the pattern to match contains a slash can now be silenced by -nowarn. This warning was originally introduced unconditionally in 4.2.21. Translation of locate --limit problems is improved. POSIX will standardise -path, so the documentation no longer claims that -wholename is the 'canonical' test, and -ipath no longer generates a warning. ** Documentation Fixes Point out more explicitly that the subsecond timestamp support introduced by findutils-4.3.3 introduces a change in the format of several fields. Also explain that when reporting a bug, you should check the most recent findutils release first. Introduced doc/find-maint.texi, a maintenance manual for findutils. Added an extra worked example for find (copying a subset of files). The locate command's manual page now has a HISTORY section. #20951: Very bad/unclear/confusing documentation of security checks in find -execdir #20865: Better documentation on the fact that -delete implies -depth and that -delete interacts badly with -prune. #20552: Fixed typos, formatting and section ordering issues in the find manual page. #20529: removed spurious 'o' in description of "xargs -a" in doc/find.texi. #20232: The --max-database-age option of locate was added in release 4.3.3, but this file (NEWS) did not previously mention this fact. ** Translations Updated Dutch and Hungarian translations. -- James Youngman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> GNU findutils maintainer
