RAR - What's new in the latest version


   Version 2.60 beta 8

   1. Switch -- (stop switches scanning) did not work in
      the previous beta.


   Version 2.60 beta 7

   1. Commands "vt" and "lt" are updated to display information
      about BeOS host OS and BeOS extended attributes.

      Note that RAR/BeOS version now is available for download
      on www.rarsoft.com


   Version 2.60 beta 6

   1. Compression speed is significantly increased, by 30 - 40%
      and sometimes even more depending on data types. Memory
      requirements also are increased a little and now are about
      7.5 MB, when using 1024KB dictionary.


   Version 2.60 beta 5

   1. Increased compression of files contained regular data structures
      like executables and databases. My thanks to Alexander Khoroshev
      for help in achieving it.

   2. Bugs fixed:

      - RAR does not write more "All OK" after extraction,
        if broken file headers are found;

      - switches -cl and -cu did not work when creating an archive.


   Version 2.60 beta 3

   1. Switch -ag now can have an optional parameter - format string.


   Version 2.60 beta 2

   1. RAR beta 1 was not able to handle "switches=" command in .rarrc
      and rar environment variable. Fixed in beta 2.

   2. For better compatibility with different Linux versions RAR now
      is linked using static libraries.


   Version 2.60

   1. Information for registered users:

      WinRAR and Rar for Linux versions 2.60 and above are registered
      with a new, very secure, AV registration seal. The main advantage
      of this new authenticity verification code is a significant
      increase in the strength of the registration code and thus it's
      use as a means of identification of the origin of a sealed archive.

      Unfortunately this also means that the old registration keyfiles
      will not operate with the latest versions of Rar-Linux and WinRAR
      and thus all keyfiles must be changed. This is a cost-free process
      to the registered user.

      Please read rereg.txt file for detailed instructions on updating
      your keys.

   2. Packing speed in the "Best compression" mode has been improved.
      My thanks to Bulat Ziganshin for the hint which allowed me to
      achieve this.

   3. Increased speed of scanning for large numbers of files before
      archiving operations. Memory management also is optimized,
      so now it is possible to handle hundreds of thousands,
      or even millions of files.

   4. RAR shows the total percentage of processed data when archiving
      instead of the current file percentage as before.

   5. New switch -df - "Delete files after archiving". Command
      "rar a -df" is equal to "rar m".

   6. New switch -ag - "Generate archive name using the current date".
      Appends string "DDMMYYHHMMSS" to an archive name when creating an
      archive. Useful for daily backups.

   7. New switch -as - "Synchronize archive contents". If this switch
      is used when archiving, those archived files which are not
      present in the list of the currently added files, will be deleted
      from the archive. It is convenient to use this switch in
      combination with -u (update) to synchronize the contents of an
      archive and an archiving directory. For example, after the
      command:

      rar a -u -as backup sources\*.cpp

      the archive 'backup' will contain only *.cpp files from sources
      folder. It looks similar to creating a new archive, but with the
      one important exception - if no files are modified since a last
      backup, this operation is performed much faster than creation of
      new archive.

   8. Unrar sources are removed from the distributive. You can download
      them separately from www.rarsoft.com.  This is to reduce size of
      the RAR package.

   9. Command "S" now can be applied to an existing SFX archives
      to replace one SFX module with another.


   Version 2.50

   1. Now RAR/Linux accepts same registration codes as RAR/DOS
      and WinRAR, so a single registration is enough for the all
      three platforms. Already registered RAR/Linux users should
      write to ron@knowledgebase.fi to obtain new keys for free.

   2. Both packing speed and compression ratio have been improved.

   3. CRC of packed data is now stored for file parts split between 
      volumes. It allows localization of a damaged volume, if volumes 
      set contains one large compressed file. 

   4. New command line switches:

      a) -sv - create independent solid volumes. This switch has
         the same meaning as the option "Independent solid volumes"
         described above;

      b) -ap<path> - set path inside archive. It allows to add files
         to a specified archive folder when archiving or to remove
         the specified part of path from file names when extracting;

      c) -- switch stops further switches scanning. It can be useful,
         if you need to use in the command line a file or archive name
         beginning with '-' character.

   5. RAR home page is moved to www.rarsoft.com