[Zutils-bug] Zutils 1.12 released

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

I am pleased to announce the release of zutils 1.12.

Zutils is a collection of utilities able to process any combination of 
compressed and uncompressed files transparently. If any file given, 
including standard input, is compressed, its decompressed content is used. 
Compressed files are decompressed on the fly; no temporary files are 
created. Data format is detected by its identifier string (magic bytes), not 
by the file name extension.

These utilities are not wrapper scripts but safer and more efficient C++ 
programs. In particular the option '--recursive' is very efficient in those 
utilities supporting it.

The utilities provided are zcat, zcmp, zdiff, zgrep, ztest, and zupdate.
The formats supported are bzip2, gzip, lzip, xz, and zstd.
Zutils uses external compressors. The compressor to be used for each format 
is configurable at runtime.

zcat, zcmp, zdiff, and zgrep are improved replacements for the shell scripts 
provided by GNU gzip. ztest is unique to zutils. zupdate is similar to 
gzip's znew.

The homepage is at http://www.nongnu.org/zutils/zutils.html

The sources can be downloaded from 
http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/zutils/

The sha256sum is:
78ae5478b01c71c5194427c5c341765da831e42e80410ec980f403aa37ac88ee 
zutils-1.12.tar.lz

This release is also GPG signed. You can download the signature by appending 
'.sig' to the URL. If the 'gpg --verify' command fails because you don't 
have the required public key, then run this command to import it:

  gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 8FE99503132D7742

Key fingerprint = 1D41 C14B 272A 2219 A739  FA4F 8FE9 9503 132D 7742


Changes in version 1.12:

  * The zutils configuration file 'zutilsrc' has been renamed to 
'zutils.conf'. Zutils now looks for the configuration file in 
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zutils.conf instead of $HOME/.zutilsrc. (XDG_CONFIG_HOME 
defaults to $HOME/.config). (Suggested by Adam Tuja).

  * In zcat, zcmp, zdiff, and zgrep, the option '-O, --force-format' now 
can force also "uncompressed" format.

  * zcmp now accepts the option '-H, --hexadecimal' to print byte values in 
hexadecimal instead of octal.

  * In zcmp:
  The long name of option '-s' has been changed to '--script' following a
  similar change made to GNU ed.

  The short name '-q' has been assigned to options '--quiet' and '--silent'.

  Option '-q' now only suppresses diagnostic messages written to stderr.

  Option '-s' now only suppresses messages about file differences written to
  stdout or stderr.

  Option '-l, --list' is now different from option '-v, --verbose', which
  now undoes the effect of '--quiet'.

  * zcmp now prints byte and line in EOF message like GNU cmp:
    "zcmp: EOF on FILE after byte B, in line L".

  * zgrep now also accepts the following options: '-G, --basic-regexp', 
'--label=<label>', '--line-buffered', '-P, --perl-regexp', '--silent', '-T, 
--initial-tab', '-U, --binary', and '-Z, --null'. (Reported by Chris 
Jamboretz and Leah Neukirchen).

  * ztest now exits with status 2 if an uncompressed file has a compressed 
file name extension, or if a compressed file has a wrong compressed extension.

  * zupdate now accepts option '-d, --destdir' to write recompressed files 
to another directory. This allows, for example, recompressing files from a 
read-only file system to another place without needing to copy or link them 
to the destination directory first.

  * zupdate now accepts option '-e, --expand-extensions', which makes it 
expand combined file name extensions; tgz --> tar.lz.

  * zupdate now also accepts option '-i, --ignore-errors', which makes it 
ignore non-fatal errors. (Suggested by Antoni Sawicki).

  * All utilities now support compress'd (.Z) files through gzip. For this 
to work, the gzip program used (for example GNU gzip) must be able to 
decompress .Z files.

  * At verbosity level 1 (2 for zdiff and zgrep) or higher, '-V, --version' 
now prints the versions of the compressors used (limited by option '-M, 
--format'). (The compressors used must support option '-V' for this to work).

  * Diagnostics caused by invalid arguments to command line options now 
show the argument and the name of the option.

  * It has been documented in the manual that the data format is detected 
by its magic bytes, not by the file name extension.

  * The testsuite now tests tarlz (if available) as compressor for zupdate.


Please send bug reports and suggestions to zutils-bug@nongnu.org


Regards,
Antonio Diaz, zutils author and maintainer.

--
If you care about data safety and long-term archiving, please consider using 
lzip. See http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip_benchmark.html
http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/manual/lzip_manual.html#Quality-assurance and
http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/safety_of_the_lzip_format.html Thanks.