| XZ Utils Release Notes | |
| ====================== | |
| 5.2.0 (2014-12-21) | |
| Since 5.1.4beta: | |
| * All fixes from 5.0.8 | |
| * liblzma: Fixed lzma_stream_encoder_mt_memusage() when a preset | |
| was used. | |
| * xzdiff: If mktemp isn't installed, mkdir will be used as | |
| a fallback to create a temporary directory. Installing mktemp | |
| is still recommended. | |
| * Updated French, German, Italian, Polish, and Vietnamese | |
| translations. | |
| Summary of fixes and new features added in the 5.1.x development | |
| releases: | |
| * liblzma: | |
| - Added support for multi-threaded compression. See the | |
| lzma_mt structure, lzma_stream_encoder_mt(), and | |
| lzma_stream_encoder_mt_memusage() in <lzma/container.h>, | |
| lzma_get_progress() in <lzma/base.h>, and lzma_cputhreads() | |
| in <lzma/hardware.h> for details. | |
| - Made the uses of lzma_allocator const correct. | |
| - Added lzma_block_uncomp_encode() to create uncompressed | |
| .xz Blocks using LZMA2 uncompressed chunks. | |
| - Added support for LZMA_IGNORE_CHECK. | |
| - A few speed optimizations were made. | |
| - Added support for symbol versioning. It is enabled by default | |
| on GNU/Linux, other GNU-based systems, and FreeBSD. | |
| - liblzma (not the whole XZ Utils) should now be buildable | |
| with MSVC 2013 update 2 or later using windows/config.h. | |
| * xz: | |
| - Fixed a race condition in the signal handling. It was | |
| possible that e.g. the first SIGINT didn't make xz exit | |
| if reading or writing blocked and one had bad luck. The fix | |
| is non-trivial, so as of writing it is unknown if it will be | |
| backported to the v5.0 branch. | |
| - Multi-threaded decompression can be enabled with the | |
| --threads (-T) option. | |
| - New command line options in xz: --single-stream, | |
| --block-size=SIZE, --block-list=SIZES, | |
| --flush-timeout=TIMEOUT, and --ignore-check. | |
| - xz -lvv now shows the minimum xz version that is required to | |
| decompress the file. Currently it is 5.0.0 for all supported | |
| .xz files except files with empty LZMA2 streams require 5.0.2. | |
| * xzdiff and xzgrep now support .lzo files if lzop is installed. | |
| The .tzo suffix is also recognized as a shorthand for .tar.lzo. | |
| 5.1.4beta (2014-09-14) | |
| * All fixes from 5.0.6 | |
| * liblzma: Fixed the use of presets in threaded encoder | |
| initialization. | |
| * xz --block-list and --block-size can now be used together | |
| in single-threaded mode. Previously the combination only | |
| worked in multi-threaded mode. | |
| * Added support for LZMA_IGNORE_CHECK to liblzma and made it | |
| available in xz as --ignore-check. | |
| * liblzma speed optimizations: | |
| - Initialization of a new LZMA1 or LZMA2 encoder has been | |
| optimized. (The speed of reinitializing an already-allocated | |
| encoder isn't affected.) This helps when compressing many | |
| small buffers with lzma_stream_buffer_encode() and other | |
| similar situations where an already-allocated encoder state | |
| isn't reused. This speed-up is visible in xz too if one | |
| compresses many small files one at a time instead running xz | |
| once and giving all files as command-line arguments. | |
| - Buffer comparisons are now much faster when unaligned access | |
| is allowed (configured with --enable-unaligned-access). This | |
| speeds up encoding significantly. There is arch-specific code | |
| for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 (32-bit needs SSE2 for the best | |
| results and there's no run-time CPU detection for now). | |
| For other archs there is only generic code which probably | |
| isn't as optimal as arch-specific solutions could be. | |
| - A few speed optimizations were made to the SHA-256 code. | |
| (Note that the builtin SHA-256 code isn't used on all | |
| operating systems.) | |
| * liblzma can now be built with MSVC 2013 update 2 or later | |
| using windows/config.h. | |
| * Vietnamese translation was added. | |
| 5.1.3alpha (2013-10-26) | |
| * All fixes from 5.0.5 | |
| * liblzma: | |
| - Fixed a deadlock in the threaded encoder. | |
| - Made the uses of lzma_allocator const correct. | |
| - Added lzma_block_uncomp_encode() to create uncompressed | |
| .xz Blocks using LZMA2 uncompressed chunks. | |
| - Added support for native threads on Windows and the ability | |
| to detect the number of CPU cores. | |
| * xz: | |
| - Fixed a race condition in the signal handling. It was | |
| possible that e.g. the first SIGINT didn't make xz exit | |
| if reading or writing blocked and one had bad luck. The fix | |
| is non-trivial, so as of writing it is unknown if it will be | |
| backported to the v5.0 branch. | |
| - Made the progress indicator work correctly in threaded mode. | |
| - Threaded encoder now works together with --block-list=SIZES. | |
| - Added preliminary support for --flush-timeout=TIMEOUT. | |
| It can be useful for (somewhat) real-time streaming. For | |
| now the decompression side has to be done with something | |
| else than the xz tool due to how xz does buffering, but this | |
| should be fixed. | |
| 5.1.2alpha (2012-07-04) | |
| * All fixes from 5.0.3 and 5.0.4 | |
| * liblzma: | |
| - Fixed a deadlock and an invalid free() in the threaded encoder. | |
| - Added support for symbol versioning. It is enabled by default | |
| on GNU/Linux, other GNU-based systems, and FreeBSD. | |
| - Use SHA-256 implementation from the operating system if one is | |
| available in libc, libmd, or libutil. liblzma won't use e.g. | |
| OpenSSL or libgcrypt to avoid introducing new dependencies. | |
| - Fixed liblzma.pc for static linking. | |
| - Fixed a few portability bugs. | |
| * xz --decompress --single-stream now fixes the input position after | |
| successful decompression. Now the following works: | |
| echo foo | xz > foo.xz | |
| echo bar | xz >> foo.xz | |
| ( xz -dc --single-stream ; xz -dc --single-stream ) < foo.xz | |
| Note that it doesn't work if the input is not seekable | |
| or if there is Stream Padding between the concatenated | |
| .xz Streams. | |
| * xz -lvv now shows the minimum xz version that is required to | |
| decompress the file. Currently it is 5.0.0 for all supported .xz | |
| files except files with empty LZMA2 streams require 5.0.2. | |
| * Added an *incomplete* implementation of --block-list=SIZES to xz. | |
| It only works correctly in single-threaded mode and when | |
| --block-size isn't used at the same time. --block-list allows | |
| specifying the sizes of Blocks which can be useful e.g. when | |
| creating files for random-access reading. | |
| 5.1.1alpha (2011-04-12) | |
| * All fixes from 5.0.2 | |
| * liblzma fixes that will also be included in 5.0.3: | |
| - A memory leak was fixed. | |
| - lzma_stream_buffer_encode() no longer creates an empty .xz | |
| Block if encoding an empty buffer. Such an empty Block with | |
| LZMA2 data would trigger a bug in 5.0.1 and older (see the | |
| first bullet point in 5.0.2 notes). When releasing 5.0.2, | |
| I thought that no encoder creates this kind of files but | |
| I was wrong. | |
| - Validate function arguments better in a few functions. Most | |
| importantly, specifying an unsupported integrity check to | |
| lzma_stream_buffer_encode() no longer creates a corrupt .xz | |
| file. Probably no application tries to do that, so this | |
| shouldn't be a big problem in practice. | |
| - Document that lzma_block_buffer_encode(), | |
| lzma_easy_buffer_encode(), lzma_stream_encoder(), and | |
| lzma_stream_buffer_encode() may return LZMA_UNSUPPORTED_CHECK. | |
| - The return values of the _memusage() functions are now | |
| documented better. | |
| * Support for multithreaded compression was added using the simplest | |
| method, which splits the input data into blocks and compresses | |
| them independently. Other methods will be added in the future. | |
| The current method has room for improvement, e.g. it is possible | |
| to reduce the memory usage. | |
| * Added the options --single-stream and --block-size=SIZE to xz. | |
| * xzdiff and xzgrep now support .lzo files if lzop is installed. | |
| The .tzo suffix is also recognized as a shorthand for .tar.lzo. | |
| * Support for short 8.3 filenames under DOS was added to xz. It is | |
| experimental and may change before it gets into a stable release. | |
| 5.0.8 (2014-12-21) | |
| * Fixed an old bug in xzgrep that affected OpenBSD and probably | |
| a few other operating systems too. | |
| * Updated French and German translations. | |
| * Added support for detecting the amount of RAM on AmigaOS/AROS. | |
| * Minor build system updates. | |
| 5.0.7 (2014-09-20) | |
| * Fix regressions introduced in 5.0.6: | |
| - Fix building with non-GNU make. | |
| - Fix invalid Libs.private value in liblzma.pc which broke | |
| static linking against liblzma if the linker flags were | |
| taken from pkg-config. | |
| 5.0.6 (2014-09-14) | |
| * xzgrep now exits with status 0 if at least one file matched. | |
| * A few minor portability and build system fixes | |
| 5.0.5 (2013-06-30) | |
| * lzmadec and liblzma's lzma_alone_decoder(): Support decompressing | |
| .lzma files that have less common settings in the headers | |
| (dictionary size other than 2^n or 2^n + 2^(n-1), or uncompressed | |
| size greater than 256 GiB). The limitations existed to avoid false | |
| positives when detecting .lzma files. The lc + lp <= 4 limitation | |
| still remains since liblzma's LZMA decoder has that limitation. | |
| NOTE: xz's .lzma support or liblzma's lzma_auto_decoder() are NOT | |
| affected by this change. They still consider uncommon .lzma headers | |
| as not being in the .lzma format. Changing this would give way too | |
| many false positives. | |
| * xz: | |
| - Interaction of preset and custom filter chain options was | |
| made less illogical. This affects only certain less typical | |
| uses cases so few people are expected to notice this change. | |
| Now when a custom filter chain option (e.g. --lzma2) is | |
| specified, all preset options (-0 ... -9, -e) earlier are on | |
| the command line are completely forgotten. Similarly, when | |
| a preset option is specified, all custom filter chain options | |
| earlier on the command line are completely forgotten. | |
| Example 1: "xz -9 --lzma2=preset=5 -e" is equivalent to "xz -e" | |
| which is equivalent to "xz -6e". Earlier -e didn't put xz back | |
| into preset mode and thus the example command was equivalent | |
| to "xz --lzma2=preset=5". | |
| Example 2: "xz -9e --lzma2=preset=5 -7" is equivalent to | |
| "xz -7". Earlier a custom filter chain option didn't make | |
| xz forget the -e option so the example was equivalent to | |
| "xz -7e". | |
| - Fixes and improvements to error handling. | |
| - Various fixes to the man page. | |
| * xzless: Fixed to work with "less" versions 448 and later. | |
| * xzgrep: Made -h an alias for --no-filename. | |
| * Include the previously missing debug/translation.bash which can | |
| be useful for translators. | |
| * Include a build script for Mac OS X. This has been in the Git | |
| repository since 2010 but due to a mistake in Makefile.am the | |
| script hasn't been included in a release tarball before. | |
| 5.0.4 (2012-06-22) | |
| * liblzma: | |
| - Fix lzma_index_init(). It could crash if memory allocation | |
| failed. | |
| - Fix the possibility of an incorrect LZMA_BUF_ERROR when a BCJ | |
| filter is used and the application only provides exactly as | |
| much output space as is the uncompressed size of the file. | |
| - Fix a bug in doc/examples_old/xz_pipe_decompress.c. It didn't | |
| check if the last call to lzma_code() really returned | |
| LZMA_STREAM_END, which made the program think that truncated | |
| files are valid. | |
| - New example programs in doc/examples (old programs are now in | |
| doc/examples_old). These have more comments and more detailed | |
| error handling. | |
| * Fix "xz -lvv foo.xz". It could crash on some corrupted files. | |
| * Fix output of "xz --robot -lv" and "xz --robot -lvv" which | |
| incorrectly printed the filename also in the "foo (x/x)" format. | |
| * Fix exit status of "xzdiff foo.xz bar.xz". | |
| * Fix exit status of "xzgrep foo binary_file". | |
| * Fix portability to EBCDIC systems. | |
| * Fix a configure issue on AIX with the XL C compiler. See INSTALL | |
| for details. | |
| * Update French, German, Italian, and Polish translations. | |
| 5.0.3 (2011-05-21) | |
| * liblzma fixes: | |
| - A memory leak was fixed. | |
| - lzma_stream_buffer_encode() no longer creates an empty .xz | |
| Block if encoding an empty buffer. Such an empty Block with | |
| LZMA2 data would trigger a bug in 5.0.1 and older (see the | |
| first bullet point in 5.0.2 notes). When releasing 5.0.2, | |
| I thought that no encoder creates this kind of files but | |
| I was wrong. | |
| - Validate function arguments better in a few functions. Most | |
| importantly, specifying an unsupported integrity check to | |
| lzma_stream_buffer_encode() no longer creates a corrupt .xz | |
| file. Probably no application tries to do that, so this | |
| shouldn't be a big problem in practice. | |
| - Document that lzma_block_buffer_encode(), | |
| lzma_easy_buffer_encode(), lzma_stream_encoder(), and | |
| lzma_stream_buffer_encode() may return LZMA_UNSUPPORTED_CHECK. | |
| - The return values of the _memusage() functions are now | |
| documented better. | |
| * Fix command name detection in xzgrep. xzegrep and xzfgrep now | |
| correctly use egrep and fgrep instead of grep. | |
| * French translation was added. | |
| 5.0.2 (2011-04-01) | |
| * LZMA2 decompressor now correctly accepts LZMA2 streams with no | |
| uncompressed data. Previously it considered them corrupt. The | |
| bug can affect applications that use raw LZMA2 streams. It is | |
| very unlikely to affect .xz files because no compressor creates | |
| .xz files with empty LZMA2 streams. (Empty .xz files are a | |
| different thing than empty LZMA2 streams.) | |
| * "xz --suffix=.foo filename.foo" now refuses to compress the | |
| file due to it already having the suffix .foo. It was already | |
| documented on the man page, but the code lacked the test. | |
| * "xzgrep -l foo bar.xz" works now. | |
| * Polish translation was added. | |
| 5.0.1 (2011-01-29) | |
| * xz --force now (de)compresses files that have setuid, setgid, | |
| or sticky bit set and files that have multiple hard links. | |
| The man page had it documented this way already, but the code | |
| had a bug. | |
| * gzip and bzip2 support in xzdiff was fixed. | |
| * Portability fixes | |
| * Minor fix to Czech translation | |
| 5.0.0 (2010-10-23) | |
| Only the most important changes compared to 4.999.9beta are listed | |
| here. One change is especially important: | |
| * The memory usage limit is now disabled by default. Some scripts | |
| written before this change may have used --memory=max on xz command | |
| line or in XZ_OPT. THESE USES OF --memory=max SHOULD BE REMOVED | |
| NOW, because they interfere with user's ability to set the memory | |
| usage limit himself. If user-specified limit causes problems to | |
| your script, blame the user. | |
| Other significant changes: | |
| * Added support for XZ_DEFAULTS environment variable. This variable | |
| allows users to set default options for xz, e.g. default memory | |
| usage limit or default compression level. Scripts that use xz | |
| must never set or unset XZ_DEFAULTS. Scripts should use XZ_OPT | |
| instead if they need a way to pass options to xz via an | |
| environment variable. | |
| * The compression settings associated with the preset levels | |
| -0 ... -9 have been changed. --extreme was changed a little too. | |
| It is now less likely to make compression worse, but with some | |
| files the new --extreme may compress slightly worse than the old | |
| --extreme. | |
| * If a preset level (-0 ... -9) is specified after a custom filter | |
| chain options have been used (e.g. --lzma2), the custom filter | |
| chain will be forgotten. Earlier the preset options were | |
| completely ignored after custom filter chain options had been | |
| seen. | |
| * xz will create sparse files when decompressing if the uncompressed | |
| data contains long sequences of binary zeros. This is done even | |
| when writing to standard output that is connected to a regular | |
| file and certain additional conditions are met to make it safe. | |
| * Support for "xz --list" was added. Combine with --verbose or | |
| --verbose --verbose (-vv) for detailed output. | |
| * I had hoped that liblzma API would have been stable after | |
| 4.999.9beta, but there have been a couple of changes in the | |
| advanced features, which don't affect most applications: | |
| - Index handling code was revised. If you were using the old | |
| API, you will get a compiler error (so it's easy to notice). | |
| - A subtle but important change was made to the Block handling | |
| API. lzma_block.version has to be initialized even for | |
| lzma_block_header_decode(). Code that doesn't do it will work | |
| for now, but might break in the future, which makes this API | |
| change easy to miss. | |
| * The major soname has been bumped to 5.0.0. liblzma API and ABI | |
| are now stable, so the need to recompile programs linking against | |
| liblzma shouldn't arise soon. | |