Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 23:36:39 +0100 From: Eivind Eklund <eivind@yes.no> To: Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC <softweyr@xmission.com>, Derek Flowers <djflow@portwwwbus.tc.cc.va.us> Cc: software@kew.com, stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Binary package updates, etc. Message-ID: <19980323233639.18183@follo.net> In-Reply-To: <199803232209.PAA27779@xmission.xmission.com>; from Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC on Mon, Mar 23, 1998 at 03:09:27PM -0700 References: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980322032911.10136A-100000@portwwwbus.tc.cc.va.us> <199803232209.PAA27779@xmission.xmission.com>
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On Mon, Mar 23, 1998 at 03:09:27PM -0700, Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC wrote: > o Should we use binary diffs? (What are binary diffs?) > > Binary diffs mean that we could send out just the bytes in any changed > file, rather than the whole file. For many updates, where you are > changing only a few small features in a large binary, the diff could > be quite a bit smaller. > > This is a cool idea, and would save users a lot of download time in > the future. On the other hand, binary diff utilities are non-trivial > to create. I'd say if we can find binary diff and patch utilities to > add to the system, use them, but it's not worth delaying the > implementation to wait for this feature. We can always add it in the > future, as an update. ;^) I've not been able to find any Open Source binary diff/patch systems. Implementing one is actually not too hard. You do an LZ77 (or LZW, but that strands you in patent-land) compression with the old executable considered a string pool. It should be only an evening or two's worth of work, if you've done LZ-compression before and know the tricks. Eivind. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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