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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.

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