Updated

NEWS

@@ -8,6 +8,12 @@ Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
 
 version 1.13.26
 
+* Added support for POSIX.1-2001 archive format.
+* New option --format allows to select the output archive format
+* The default output format can be selected at configuration time
+by presetting the environment variable DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT.
+Allowed values are GNU, V7, OLDGNU and POSIX.
+
 * Bug fixes.
 
 * New options --index-file, --no-overwrite-dir.  The --overwrite-dir

README

@@ -52,6 +52,10 @@ Besides those configure options documented in files `INSTALL' and
 operating system supports large files.  Typically, large files are
 those larger on 2 GB on a 32-bit host.
 
+The default archive format is GNU, this can be overridden by
+presetting DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT while configuring. The allowed
+values are GNU, V7, OLDGNU and POSIX.
+
 The default archive device is now `stdin' on read and `stdout' on write.
 The installer can still override this by presetting `DEFAULT_ARCHIVE'
 in the environment before configuring (the behavior of `-[0-7]' or

TODO

@@ -2,10 +2,9 @@ Suggestions for improving GNU tar.
 
 * Incorporate fixes from major distributions, e.g., Debian GNU/Linux.
 
-* Fix tar so that it can read and write POSIX.1-1990 tar archives.
-
-* Add support for POSIX 1003.1-2001 tar archives
-  (along with technical corrections to the standard since 2001).
+* Add support for GNU private keywords in POSIX 1003.1-2001 headers,
+so that the GNU extensions (--sparse, --incremental, --label and
+--multi-volume) may be used with POSIX archives.
 
 * Add support for a 'pax' command that conforms to POSIX 1003.1-2001.
   This would unify paxutils with tar.
@@ -31,6 +30,26 @@ Suggestions for improving GNU tar.
   It would be useful to be able to use '--remove-files' with '--diff',
   to remove all files that compare successfully, when verifying a backup.
 
+* Add an option to cut away the first N output path elements:
+
+  From: Marc Haber <mh+debian-bugs@zugschlus.de>
+  Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 08:55:31 +0200
+
+  some archives have members like
+  foo/bar
+  foo/baz
+  foo/bam
+  
+  When I now want to extract the three members bar, baz and bam to the
+  directory fom instead foo, I need to extract to foo and then to move
+  the files over manually.
+
+  patch(1) solves that problem by offering an option taking the number
+  of path elements to cut away before using the path name. With an
+  option like that, the above problem could be solved with
+
+  tar --extract --cut-path-elements 1 --directory fom
+
   
 * Copyright notice