1 GNU Wget NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send GNU Wget bug reports to <bug-wget@gnu.org>.
10 ** It is now possible to specify that POST method be used for HTTP
11 requests. For example, `wget --post-data="id=foo&data=bar" URL' will
12 send a POST request with the specified contents.
14 ** IPv6 is experimentally supported.
16 ** The `--timeout' option now affects DNS lookup and establishing the
17 connection as well. Previously it only affected reading and writing
20 ** Download speed shown by the progress bar is based on the data
21 recently read, rather than the average speed of the entire download.
22 The ETA is still based on the average speed, though.
24 ** It is now possible to connect to FTP servers through FWTK
25 firewalls. Set ftp_proxy to an FTP URL, and Wget will automatically
26 log on to the proxy as "username@host".
28 ** The new option `--retry-connrefused' makes Wget retry downloads
29 even in the face of refused connections, which are otherwise
30 considered a fatal error.
32 ** The new option `--dns-cache=off' may be used to prevent Wget from
35 ** Wget no longer escapes characters in local file names based on
36 whether they're appropriate in URLs. Escaping can still occur for
37 nonprintable characters or for '/', but no longer for frequent
38 characters such as space. You can use the new option
39 --restrict-file-names to relax or strengthen these rules, which can be
40 useful if you dislike the default or if you're downloading to
41 non-native partitions.
43 * Wget 1.8.2 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
45 * Wget 1.8.1 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
47 * Changes in Wget 1.8.
49 ** A new progress indicator is now available and used by default.
50 You can choose the progress bar type with `--progress=TYPE'. Two
51 types are available, "bar" (the new default), and "dot" (the old
52 dotted indicator). You can permanently revert to the old progress
53 indicator by putting `progress = dot' in your `.wgetrc'.
55 ** You can limit the download rate of the retrieval using the
56 `--limit-rate' option. For example, `wget --limit-rate=15k URL' will
57 tell Wget not to download the body of the URL faster than 15 kilobytes
60 ** Recursive retrieval and link conversion have been revamped:
62 *** Wget now traverses links breadth-first. This makes the
63 calculation of depth much more reliable than before. Also, recursive
64 downloads are faster and consume *significantly* less memory than
67 *** Links are converted only when the entire retrieval is complete.
68 This is the only safe thing to do, as only then is it known what URLs
71 *** BASE tags are handled correctly when converting links. Since Wget
72 already resolves <base href="..."> when resolving handling URLs, link
73 conversion now makes the BASE tags point to an empty string.
75 *** HTML anchors are now handled correctly. Links to an anchor in the
76 same document (<a href="#anchorname">), which used to confuse Wget,
77 are now converted correctly.
79 *** When in page-requisites (-p) mode, no-parent (-np) is ignored when
80 retrieving for inline images, stylesheets, and other documents needed
83 *** Page-requisites (-p) mode now works with frames. In other words,
84 `wget -p URL-THAT-USES-FRAMES' will now download the frame HTML files,
85 and all the files that they need to be displayed properly.
87 ** `--base' now works conjunction with `--input-file', providing a
88 base for each URL and thereby allowing the URLs in the file to be
91 ** If a host has more than one IP address, Wget uses the other
92 addresses when accessing the first one fails.
94 ** Host directories now contain port information if the URL is at a
97 ** Wget now supports the robots.txt directives specified in
98 <http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots-rfc.txt>.
100 ** URL parser has been fixed, especially the infamous overzealous
101 quoting. Wget no longer dequotes reserved characters, e.g. `%3F' is
102 no longer translated to `?', nor `%2B' to `+'. Unsafe characters
103 which are not reserved are still escaped, of course.
105 ** No more than 20 successive redirections are allowed.
107 * Wget 1.7.1 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
109 * Changes in Wget 1.7.
111 ** SSL (`https') pages now work if you compile Wget with SSL support;
112 use the `--with-ssl' configure flag. You need to have OpenSSL
115 ** Cookies are now supported. Wget will accept cookies sent by the
116 server and return them in later requests. Additionally, it can load
117 and save cookies to disk, in the same format that Netscape uses.
119 ** "Keep-alive" (persistent) HTTP connections are now supported.
120 Using keep-alive allows Wget to share one TCP/IP connection for
121 many retrievals, making multiple-file downloads faster and less
122 stressing for the server and the network.
124 ** Wget now recognizes FTP directory listings generated by NT and VMS
127 ** It is now possible to recurse through FTP sites where logging in
128 puts you in some directory other than '/'.
130 ** You may now use `~' to mean home directory in `.wgetrc'. For
131 example, `load_cookies = ~/.netscape/cookies.txt' works as you would
134 ** The HTML parser has been rewritten. The new one works more
135 reliably, allows finer-grained control over which tags and attributes
136 are detected, and has better support for some features like correctly
137 skipping comments and declarations, decoding entities, etc. It is
140 ** <meta name="robots"> tags are now respected.
142 ** Wget's internal tables now use hash tables instead of linked lists
143 where appropriate. This results in huge speedups when retrieving
144 large sites (thousands of documents).
146 ** Wget now has a man page, automatically generated from the Texinfo
147 documentation. (The last version that shipped with a man page was
148 1.4.5). To get this, you need to have pod2man from the Perl
149 distribution installed on your system.
151 * Changes in Wget 1.6
153 ** Administrative changes.
155 *** Maintainership. Due to Hrvoje being plagued with a "real job",
156 Dan Harkless is the most active maintainer (not that he doesn't have a
157 real job as well). Hrvoje still participates occasionally, and both
158 are being helped by many other people.
160 *** Web page. Thanks to Jan Prikryl, Wget has an "official" web page.
163 http://sunsite.dk/wget/
165 *** Anonymous CVS. Thanks to ever-helpful Karsten Thygesen, Wget
166 sources are now available at an anonymous CVS server. Take a look at
167 the web page for downloading instructions.
169 ** New -K / --backup-converted / backup_converted = on option causes files
170 modified due to -k to be saved with a .orig prefix before being changed. When
171 using -N as well, it is these .orig files that are compared against the server.
173 ** New --follow-tags / follow_tags = ... option allows you to restrict
174 Wget to following only certain HTML tags when doing a recursive
175 retrieval. -G / --ignore-tags / ignore_tags = ... is just the
176 opposite -- all tags but the ones you specify will be followed.
178 ** New --waitretry / waitretry = SECONDS option allows waiting between retries
179 of failed downloads. Wget will use "linear" backoff, waiting 1 second after the
180 first failure, 2 after the second, up to SECONDS. waitretry is set to 10 by
181 default in the system wgetrc.
183 ** New -p / --page-requisites / page_requisites = on option causes
184 Wget to download all ancillary files necessary to display a given HTML
185 page properly (e.g. inlined images).
187 ** New -E / --html-extension / html_extension = on option causes Wget
188 to append ".html" to text/html filenames not ending in regexp
189 "\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?".
191 ** New type of .wgetrc command -- "lockable Boolean". Can be set to on, off,
192 always, or never. This allows the .wgetrc to override the commandline. So far,
193 passive_ftp is the only .wgetrc command which takes a lockable Boolean.
195 ** A number of new translation files have been added.
197 ** New --bind-address / bind_address = <address> option for people on hosts
198 bound to multiple IP addresses.
200 ** wget now accepts (illegal per HTTP spec) relative URLs in HTTP redirects.
202 * Wget 1.5.3 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
204 * Wget 1.5.2 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
206 * Wget 1.5.1 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
208 * Changes in Wget 1.5.0
210 ** Wget speaks many languages!
212 On systems with gettext(), Wget will output messages in the language
213 set by the current locale, if available. At this time we support
214 Czech, German, Croatian, Italian, Norwegian and Portuguese.
216 ** Opie (Skey) is now supported with FTP.
218 ** HTTP Digest Access Authentication (RFC2069) is now supported.
220 ** The new `-b' option makes Wget go to background automatically.
222 ** The `-I' and `-X' options now accept wildcard arguments.
224 ** The `-w' option now accepts suffixes `s' for seconds, `m' for
225 minutes, `h' for hours, `d' for days and `w' for weeks.
227 ** Upon getting SIGHUP, the whole previous log is now copied to
230 ** Wget now understands proxy settings with explicit usernames and
231 passwords, e.g. `http://user:password@proxy.foo.com/'.
233 ** You can use the new `--cut-dirs' option to make Wget create less
236 ** The `;type=a' appendix to FTP URLs is now recognized. For
237 instance, the following command will retrieve the welcoming message in
240 wget "ftp://ftp.somewhere.com/welcome.msg;type=a"
242 ** `--help' and `--version' options have been redone to to conform to
243 standards set by other GNU utilities.
245 ** Wget should now be compilable under MS Windows environment. MS
246 Visual C++ and Watcom C have been used successfully.
248 ** If the file length is known, percentages are displayed during
251 ** The manual page, now hopelessly out of date, is no longer
252 distributed with Wget.
254 * Wget 1.4.5 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
256 * Wget 1.4.4 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
258 * Changes in Wget 1.4.3
260 ** Wget is now a GNU utility.
262 ** Can do passive FTP.
266 ** Info documentation expanded.
268 ** Compiles on pre-ANSI compilers.
270 ** Global wgetrc now goes to /usr/local/etc (i.e. $sysconfdir).
274 * Changes in Wget 1.4.2
276 ** New mirror site at ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/pub/infosystems/wget/,
277 thanks to Karsten Thygesen.
279 ** Mailing list! Mail to wget-request@sunsite.auc.dk to subscribe.
281 ** New option --delete-after for proxy prefetching.
283 ** New option --retr-symlinks to retrieve symbolic links like plain
286 ** rmold.pl -- script to remove files deleted on the remote server
288 ** --convert-links should work now.
292 * Changes in Wget 1.4.1
296 ** Added -I (the opposite of -X).
298 ** Dot tracing is now customizable; try wget --dot-style=binary
300 * Changes in Wget 1.4.0
302 ** Wget 1.4.0 [formerly known as Geturl] is an extensive rewrite of
303 Geturl. Although many things look suspiciously similar, most of the
304 stuff was rewritten, like recursive retrieval, HTTP, FTP and mostly
305 everything else. Wget should be now easier to debug, maintain and,
306 most importantly, use.
308 ** Recursive HTTP should now work without glitches, even with Location
309 changes, server-generated directory listings and other naughty stuff.
311 ** HTTP regetting is supported on servers that support Range
312 specification. WWW authorization is supported -- try
313 wget http://user:password@hostname/
315 ** FTP support was rewritten and widely enhanced. Globbing should now
316 work flawlessly. Symbolic links are created locally. All the
317 information the Unix-style ls listing can give is now recognized.
319 ** Recursive FTP is supported, e.g.
320 wget -r ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/pub/unix/util/
322 ** You can specify "rejected" directories, to which you do not want to
323 enter, e.g. with wget -X /pub
325 ** Time-stamping is supported, with both HTTP and FTP. Try wget -N URL.
327 ** A new texinfo reference manual is provided. It can be read with
328 Emacs, standalone info, or converted to HTML, dvi or postscript.
330 ** Fixed a long-standing bug, so that Wget now works over SLIP
333 ** You can have a system-wide wgetrc (/usr/local/lib/wgetrc by
334 default). Settings in $HOME/.wgetrc override the global ones, of
337 ** You can set up quota in .wgetrc to prevent sucking too much
338 data. Try `quota = 5M' in .wgetrc (or quota = 100K if you want your
339 sysadmin to like you).
341 ** Download rate is printed after retrieval.
343 ** Wget now sends the `Referer' header when retrieving
346 ** With the new --no-parent option Wget can retrieve FTP recursively
347 through a proxy server.
349 ** HTML parser, as well as the whole of Wget was rewritten to be much
350 faster and less memory-consuming (yes, both).
352 ** Absolute links can be converted to relative links locally. Check
355 ** Wget catches hangup, filtering the output to a log file and
356 resuming work. Try kill -HUP %?wget.
358 ** User-defined headers can be sent. Try
360 wget http://fly.cc.her.hr/ --header='Accept-Charset: iso-8859-2'
362 ** Acceptance/Rejection lists may contain wildcards.
364 ** Wget can display HTTP headers and/or FTP server response with the
365 new `-S' option. It can save the original HTTP headers with `-s'.
367 ** socks library is now supported (thanks to Antonio Rosella
368 <Antonio.Rosella@agip.it>). Configure with --with-socks.
370 ** There is a nicer display of REST-ed output.
372 ** Many new options (like -x to force directory hierarchy, or -m to
373 turn on mirroring options).
375 ** Wget is now distributed under GNU General Public License (GPL).
377 ** Lots of small features I can't remember. :-)
379 ** A host of bugfixes.
381 * Changes in Geturl 1.3
383 ** Added FTP globbing support (ftp://fly.cc.fer.hr/*)
385 ** Added support for no_proxy
387 ** Added support for ftp://user:password@host/
389 ** Added support for %xx in URL syntax
391 ** More natural command-line options
393 ** Added -e switch to execute .geturlrc commands from the command-line
395 ** Added support for robots.txt
397 ** Fixed some minor bugs
399 * Geturl 1.2 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.
401 * Changes in Geturl 1.1
403 ** REST supported in FTP
405 ** Proxy servers supported
407 ** GNU getopt used, which enables command-line arguments to be ordered
408 as you wish, e.g. geturl http://fly.cc.fer.hr/ -vo log is the same as
409 geturl -vo log http://fly.cc.fer.hr/
411 ** Netscape-compatible URL syntax for HTTP supported: host[:port]/dir/file
413 ** NcFTP-compatible colon URL syntax for FTP supported: host:/dir/file
415 ** <base href="xxx"> supported
417 ** autoconf supported
419 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
420 Copyright information:
422 Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
424 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
425 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
426 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
427 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
429 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
430 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
431 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last