Findutils 4.2.21 is now available on alpha.gnu.org

[James Youngman]

I am pleased to announce the release of version 4.2.21 of GNU
findutils.  This is a bugfix release; the list of bugs fixes appears
below.

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".

This is an "unstable" release of findutils.  It includes a range of
changes, including both bugfixes and small functional changes.  It can
be downloaded from ftp://alpha.gnu.org/pub/gnu/findutils.  The current
stable release of findutils is still 4.2.20, which is available from
ftp.gnu.org and its mirrors.  More information about findutils is
available at http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/.

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 <address@hidden>.

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 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-keyring.gpg.  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 particularly like to thank Dmitry V. Levin, Paul Eggert and
Bas van Gompel for their help in preparing this release.


* Major changes in release 4.2.21
** Functional Changes to find

The GNU extension "find ... -perm +MODE" has been withdrawn because it
is incompatible with POSIX in obscure cases like "find ... -perm ++r".
Use the new syntax "find ... -perm /MODE" instead.  Old usages will
still continue to work, so long as they don't conflict with POSIX.

If the output is going to a terminal, the -print, -fprint, -printf and
-fprintf actions now quote "unusual" characters to prevent unwanted
effects on the terminal.  See "Unusual Characters in File Names" for
further details.  There is no change to the behaviour when the output
is not going to a terminal.   The locate program does the same thing,
unless the -0 option is in effect (in which case the filenames are 
printed as-is).

** Functional Changes to locate

The locate command will now read each locate database at most once.
This means that if you are using multiple databases and are searching
for more than one name, the results will now be printed in a different
order (and if you specified a small limit with --limit, you may get a
different set of results).

A new option '--print' for locate causes it to print the matching
results even if the '--count' or '--statistics' option is in effect.

** Bug Fixes
find /blah/blah/blah -depth -empty now works once again.

The -regex and -iregex tests of find now correctly accept POSIX Basic
Regular Expressions.  (Savannah bug #12999)

The updatedb program now works on systems where "su" does not support
the "-s" option, for example Solaris.

--
James Youngman <address@hidden>
GNU findutils maintainer