1 2012-04-02: atool 0.39.0 released.
2 Add support for plzip, as well as --lzip in GNU tar 1.23 and later (patch
4 Add support for lbzip2 and pigz (patch from Tim Harder).
5 Fix documentation typo (Debian #661636).
6 Updated links in README and on web page (thanks Antonio Diaz).
8 2011-08-15: atool 0.38.0 released.
9 Fix Mac OS X build time problem (reported by Dave Dribin): Don't use 'sed
10 -r' in makefiles, use 'sed' instead, etc.
11 Apply manpage typo fix patches (from Francois Marier).
12 Fixed bug preventing saved amount of data not to be printed with arepack.
13 Added -O, --format-option option for specifying archiver options.
14 Exit gracefully when specifying an unsupported formats with arepack.
15 Fix xv typo - should be xz (use_tar_xz_option etc) (from polemon).
16 Fix identification of .xpi files as zip (patch by Francois Marier,
18 Fix identification of 7zip files (patch by Bastian Kleineidam,
21 2009-08-13: atool 0.37.0 released.
22 Added support for lzip and xz (suggested by Vincent Lefevre).
23 Fixed bug in arepack command with tar archives.
24 The number of bytes saved is now printed in 'repack' mode (suggested by
25 Meino Christian Cramer).
26 Don't use -U parameter (to delete original archive) for lzop.
27 Added link to ATrpms repository to home page.
28 Added support for GNU tar's --xv, --lzop, and --lzma options when the
29 corresponding atool options are enabled (use_tar_xv_option,
30 use_tar_lzop_option and use_tar_lzma_option).
31 Better checking of config file variables.
33 2009-02-26: atool 0.36.0 released.
34 Fix problem not identifying ZIP archives using file (from mollifier).
35 Fix problem with escaping characters in UTF-8 locales.
36 Don't use -r when creating rar archives, it recurses subdirs as expected
39 2008-06-08: atool 0.35.0 released.
40 Now detect self-extracting ZIP archives using file (suggested by Jens
42 Added "use_file_always" option to always identify using file (suggested
44 Now identify compressed files (bzip2, bzip, gzip, compress) when using
46 Improved error messages (from Ed Avis).
47 Fix manpage hyphens (patch from Francois Marier).
48 Added -o, --option option to change a configuration option.
49 Added support for rzip and lrzip archives.
50 Use '-c' option with compressors such as gzip and bzip2 when piping
52 Added support for pbzip2 (added configuration options path_pbzip2 and
55 2008-04-03: atool 0.34.0 released.
56 Added support for lzma (suggested by Ed Avis and Leif Thande, patch from
58 Added extra directory.
61 2007-08-22: atool 0.33.0 released.
62 Change order of arguments in tar commands.
63 Use 'f' option to tar when using archive from stdin/to stdout (by
64 reported by Shotaro Aoyama).
65 Fix configuration file bug: "use_arj_for_unpack" did not work
66 (reported by Simon Peter).
67 Minor build and documentation updates.
69 2005-12-13: atool 0.32.0 released.
70 Fixed bug in repack mode: Could not repack a compressed file into an
71 archive, but could (incorrectly) repack an archive to a compressed file
72 (reported by Meino Christian Cramer).
73 Print ellipsis properly in output ("...", not "..") (patch from Ed Avis).
74 Added support for Microsoft Cabinet archives.
75 Ignore waitpid errors on win32 (patch from Ed Avis).
77 2005-08-08: web page updated.
78 Fixed some typos in the web page and NEWS file (will be updated for next
81 2005-08-08: atool 0.31.0 released.
82 ATTENTION: This release fixes a serious bug which might cause files and
83 directories to be removed in some circumstances when using adiff. I
84 recommend upgrading to the 0.31.0 immediately. If you cannot upgrade, you
85 are safe as long as you do not use the adiff command on untrusted
87 Here are the details: Symbolic links would be followed when temporary
88 directories were removed recursively. Only the adiff command removed
89 directories in this way - the extracted files of the archives it
90 compared. This means that if you ran adiff on an archive containing a
91 symbolic link that pointed to, say, /foo, /foo would be removed
92 recursively! This was due to a missing check for symbolic links. This bug
93 was found by code auditing, and has been fixed in this release.
94 Added arepack command (also -r, --repack) (previously incomplete and
95 disabled, also suggested by Meino Christian Cramer).
96 Added support for 7-Zip'ed TAR archives (.tar.7z) (suggested by Meino
98 Implemented cat support for 7-Zip archives.
99 Completed list of supported archive types in the manual page (some were
101 Improve --simulate and --explain.
102 Added support for acat on Debian packages (patch from Peter Valdemar
104 Added support for extracting control files from Debian packages as well
105 (patch from Peter Valdemar Mørch, thanks).
106 Fixed some manual page typos.
108 2005-07-25: atool 0.30.0 released.
109 Added support for 7-Zip archives (.7z) using p7zip (suggested by Meino
111 Added support for ALZip archives (.alz) using unalz.
112 Added support for Debian package archives (.deb) files (contributed by
114 Fixed some typos in the manual page (reported by Stephane Jourdois).
115 Added file matches for LHA SFX archives.
116 Updated building of rpm and debian packages.
117 Updated documentation.
118 Got rid of year ranges in copyright.
120 2004-07-05: atool 0.29.0 released.
121 Added support for ar archive (.a) files (suggested by Wojtek Sczygiol).
122 Improved and cleaned up handling of compressed files (single file
123 archives), resulting in some bugs fixed.
124 Deal with compressed files (.gz, .bz2, ..) differently, fixing some bugs.
125 These files are now extracted to current directory.
126 Implemented new options 'decompress_to_cwd'.
128 2004-06-18: atool 0.28.0 released.
129 'make install' will now build everything before installing.
130 Use detected perl path in atool executable (reported by Ed Avis).
131 Fixed extraction of files from LHA archives (reported by Goetz Waschk and
134 2003-11-14: atool 0.27.0 released.
135 Support for autoconf has been added (based on files from Hisham Muhammad,
137 Added support for ARC files (suggested by Ed Avis).
138 Added support for using the arj command for ARJ archives (previously only
139 unarj was supported).
140 Cleaned up and improved the manual page and README document.
141 Fixed RAR identification from file(1) output.
142 Now uses tar --bzip2 option instead of -j. The use_tar_j_option has been
143 renamed to use_tar_bzip2_option (patch submitted by Ed Avis, thanks).
144 Renamed the use_rar_for_unrar option to use_rar_for_unpack (old options
146 Bumped copyright year.
147 Removed the distdiff make target.
149 2003-05-23: atool 0.26.0 released.
150 Added a new configuration option, use_rar_for_unrar (always use rar
151 instead of unrar when possible).
152 Added a new configuration option, strip_unknown_ext (strip unknown
153 extensions). Patch submitted by Götz Waschk - thanks!
154 Tried to make atool more portable by using File::Spec more.
155 Some minor bug fixes for --simulate mode.
156 Cleaned up error messages.
158 2002-11-08: atool 0.25.0 released.
159 Implemented a new option keep_compressed to control whether the original
160 file should be kept after packing/unpacking compressed files.
161 Cleaned up code for handling compressed files.
162 Now refuses to compress multiple files into one.
163 Don't pass -r option to unrar.
164 Cleaned up and simplified the code a little (remove exec argument).
165 Use unrar instead of rar when not creating RAR archives. A new option,
166 path_unrar was added. (Requested by Götz Waschk.)
167 Use cpio for archives that file(1) reports as "ASCII cpio archive".
168 Replaced 'refuse to overwrite' wording with 'refusing to overwrite'.
170 Replaced 'single-file-compressor' wording with 'file compressor'.
171 Clarified meaning of PATH value to -X option.
173 2002-10-09: atool 0.24.0 released.
174 If PAGER is set, use that for default pager instead.
175 Debian and RPM packages now include symlinks to the manpage for aunpack,
176 apack etc too. These symlinks are also installed during make install.
177 Build fixes for RPM package from Götz Waschk (thanks).
178 Don't set root:root owner when installing files in Makefile.
180 2002-09-28: atool 0.23.0 released.
181 Added new feature: If no file arguments are specified with apack,
182 filenames are read from standard in.
183 Added new option: -0, --null to specify that filenames read from standard
184 in are separated by null-bytes.
185 Fixed tab stop in --help message.
186 Exit with non-zero return code if any command failed.
187 Cleaned up code (add parens around subroutine calls) to prevent weird
190 2002-09-17: atool 0.22.0 released.
191 Fixed use_gzip_for_z configuration option name typo (was
193 New option use_find_cpio_print0 to make find use -print0 and cpio -0.
194 Added support for lzop archives.
196 2002-09-16: atool 0.21.0 released.
197 Use POSIX::getcwd instead of Cwd::cwd (fixes warnings with perl 5.8).
198 Fixed some bugs for Perl 5.005 compatibility (reported by Nicholas
200 Use sysopen instead of three argument open to open some files.
201 Use POSIX::isprint instead of /[[:print:]]/.
202 Added --subdir (-D) option to always extract to subdirectory.
204 2002-09-08: atool 0.20.0 released.
205 Added support for cpio archives.
206 Fixed bugs with --save-outdir (wouldn't save right directory), and
208 Fixed help message ("current directory" => "specified directory").
210 2002-07-13: atool 0.19.0 released.
211 Added PREFIX variable to Makefile (patch submitted by Dave Dribin).
212 Updated man page with supported archive formats.
213 Always run rar with the -r (recursive) option.
214 Documented how to make aunpack change into the directory where files were
215 extracted to (feature requested by Brian Hall).
217 2002-07-02: atool 0.18.0 released.
218 Added support for rpm archives (patch submitted by João Lourenço -
220 Added configuration option `show_extracted' to always show what file was
221 extracted. This is also the default behavior now.
222 Added adiff example to manpage.
223 Running atool on files with names beginning with <, >, +, | or other
224 similar characters could potentially have very bad effects on atool (such
225 as files disappearing). This is fixed now.
226 Updated the author's email address in the help and version messages.
227 Improved error messages by quoting all filenames mentioned.
228 No longer change mode on directories before removing them (now considered
229 to be unsafe by myself, despite the fact that I wrote the code originally
231 Atool can now be used on files with newline and delete characters in
232 their names. (As a result of this, atool now uses the POSIX perl module.)
234 2002-04-14: atool 0.17.0 released.
235 Added support for extraction of arj archives.
236 Fixed symlink creation during make install (patch from Brian Hall).
237 Fixed wording ("files in root" instead of "root files").
238 Fixed adiff on compressed files (would have no effect, and would leave an
241 2002-02-09: atool 0.16.0 released.
242 Added new option `args_diff' to control diff arguments (previously `-ru'
244 Updated wordings in the README.
245 Reformatted NEWS file. :)
246 Improved Makefile somewhat.
247 Fixed identification and some extension-related issues with LHA and RAR.
248 Added support for ace archives (extraction and listing only).
249 Mention URL for some archiver programs in the README.
251 2001-12-22: atool 0.15.0 released.
252 Fixed a minor bug that would prevent atool from extracting archives with
253 one non-writable root directory properly (reported by Matthew Mueller).
254 Added files for making RPM packages of atool.
257 2001-11-17: atool 0.14.0 released.
258 Added support for .lha archives (with lha command).
259 Fixed and improved the adiff command. (It will no longer ask before
261 Changed default path for the compress command to 'compress'.
262 Improved error messages.
263 Some very minor bug fixes.
265 2001-10-26: atool 0.13.0 released.
266 New command adiff that generates a diff between two archives.
269 2001-09-18: atool 0.12.0 released.
270 Improved error messages when the program to execute does not exist (no
272 The author has changed email-address to oskar@osk.mine.nu.
274 2001-08-13: atool 0.11.0 released.
275 Improved error messages.
276 The --each option can now be used with the add command. (This can be used
277 to create multiple archives at a time.)
279 2001-08-01: atool 0.10.0 released.
280 New option -e, --each to extract or list multiple archives in one
282 Fixed a bug causing gzip, bzip, bzip2 and compress'd files not to be
283 identified correctly.
284 Added sections `Examples' and `Known Bugs' to the manual page.
286 2001-07-16: atool 0.9.0 released.
287 Rethought the verbosity options. New options: -v, --verbose and -V,
288 --verbosity. Default verbosity level can now be set in configuration
290 Changed behaviour of apack on compressed (gzip, bzip2, ..) files (didn't
292 Now file's -z option is used to identify more formats.
293 Included more information in the manual page (about configuration etc).
294 New option --config to load a specific configuration file.
295 The temporary extraction directory is now removed on exit, if it is
297 Now refuses to overwrite existing files when creating archives.
298 Minor bug fixes, error message improvements and typo corrections.
300 2001-07-05: atool 0.8.0 released.
301 Added support for configuration files. System-wide (/etc/atool.conf) and
302 user (~/.atoolrc) configuration files are supported.
303 Added support for identifying files using file(1). See the README file
305 Symbolic links that refers to non-existant files will no longer be
306 overwritten when extracting files (these symlinks were previously
307 considered to be non-existant themselves).
308 The NEWS file is included again.
309 Added option (use_gzip_for_z) to control whether to use gzip or
310 uncompress to decompress .Z files.
311 Some minor bug fixes.
313 2001-04-16: atool 0.7.0 released.
314 Fixed all commands for tar archives (output would be written to stdout
315 and input read from stdin by default),
316 When extracting tar.Z archives, extension wouldn't be removed from output
317 directory. This has been fixed now.
318 Manual format (with --format) wouldn't work at all. This is fixed now.
319 Added -F as an alias for --format.
320 Recognize .war as a JAR archive.
322 2001-04-04: atool 0.6.0 released.
323 Added this NEWS document.
324 Complete rewrite resulting in cleaner and better code.
325 Added support for rar archives.
326 Added support for .Z (compress) compressed files and .tar.Z archives.
327 New option "-p, --page", to send output through pager.
328 New option "-E, --explain" to have atool explain what is being done.
329 New option "-S, --simulate" to have atool simulate commands.
330 Changed "-X, --extract-here" command to "-X, --extract-to" that requires
332 The temporary extraction directory is now named "Unpack-XXXX", instead of
334 Added configuration options for setting path of programs to use.
335 Added configuration options for controlling name of temporary extraction
337 Implemented a command line generation engine so that /bin/sh is used only
341 2001-03-28: atool 0.5.0 released.
342 Rereleased with new version number (0.3.0 was released as 0.4.0 on
345 2001-03-27: atool 0.4.0 released.
346 Added forward function declarations to fix "X called to early to check
347 prototype" messages generated by Perl 5.6.
348 Added files for making Debian packages of atool.
349 Fixed help text for -X command.
350 Added prototypes for functions without them.
351 Added manpage for atool.
352 Added more license text from COPYING to the atool source and README file.
354 2001-03-24: atool 0.3.0 released.
355 Fixed "Use of uninitialized value" messages when extracting from
357 Added support for jar archives, and use_jar_program configuration
359 The "-q, --quiet" option is now listed in help message.
360 Configuration variables are now better documented in the README.
361 Some cleanup of the atool code.
362 Use exec instead of system where possible.
364 2001-03-21: atool 0.2.0 released.
365 Now creates temporary extraction directory only when necessary.
366 Display a message when list command is run on compressed files.
368 2001-03-17: atool 0.1.0 released.
369 First public release.