Debian buster: changes in coreutils #newinbuster
Debian buster is there, and similar to what we had with #newinwheezy, #newinjessie and #newinstretch it’s time for #newinbuster!
One package that isn’t new but its tools are used by many of us is coreutils, providing many essential system utilities. We have coreutils v8.26-3 in Debian/stretch and coreutils v8.30-3 in Debian/buster. Compared to the changes between jessie and stretch there are no new tools, but there are some new options available that I’d like to point out.
New features/options
b2sum + md5sum + sha1sum + sha224sum + sha256sum + sha384sum + sha512sum (compute and check message digest):
-z, --zero end each output line with NUL, not newline, nd disable file name escaping
cp (copy files and directories):
Use --reflink=never to ensure a standard copy is performed.
env (run a program in a modified environment):
-C, --chdir=DIR change working directory to DIR
-S, --split-string=S process and split S into separate arguments;
used to pass multiple arguments on shebang lines
-v, --debug print verbose information for each processing step
ls (list directory contents), dir + vdir (list directory contents):
--hyperlink[=WHEN] hyperlink file names; WHEN can be 'always' (default if omitted), 'auto', or 'never'
This –hyperlink option is especially worth mentioning if you’re using a recent terminal emulator (especially based on VTE), see Hyperlinks (a.k.a. HTML-like anchors) in terminal emulators for further information.
rm (remove files or directories):
--preserve-root=all do not remove '/' (default); with 'all', reject any command line argument on a separate device from its parent
split (split a file into pieces):
-x use hex suffixes starting at 0, not alphabetic --hex-suffixes[=FROM] same as -x, but allow setting the start value
timeout (run a command with a time limit):
-v, --verbose diagnose to stderr any signal sent upon timeout
Changes:
date (print or set the system date and time):
--rfc-2822 (AKA -R) was renamed into --rfc-email, while --rfc-2822 is still supported
nl (write each FILE to standard output, with line numbers added):
Old default options: -bt -fn -hn -i1 -l1 -nrn -sTAB -v1 -w6 New default options: -bt -d'\:' -fn -hn -i1 -l1 -n'rn' -s<tab> -v1 -w6