Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 17:41:45 -0700 From: Jordan K Hubbard <jkh@queasyweasel.com> To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org> Cc: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, Dan Moschuk <dan@FreeBSD.ORG>, arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Package system flaws? Message-ID: <7AAA514D-920B-11D6-AACD-0003938C7B7E@queasyweasel.com> In-Reply-To: <xzp4rfbntq4.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>
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On Sunday, July 7, 2002, at 01:55 PM, Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote: > That's precisely what I want to avoid. With tar, you always have to > uncompress the entire package to find even just one file (unless you > use the GNU-specific --fast-read option, in which case it stops once > it finds the file you asked for) Actually, it's the FreeBSD-specific --fast-read option. I added it so that I could extract the +CONTENTS file without having tar go all the way through the tarball looking for additional +CONTENTS files. I'm actually with Wes anyway - zip would be a fine format on account of the fact that it: 1) Allows random access AND compression 2) Has comment fields for each archive member and for the zip file itself which can be [ab]used for storing checksums, PGP signatures, etc. 3) Can be programmatically accessed using some of the libzip libraries available so you aren't always at the mercy of being at arm's length with a command like tar (which is nice when you're trying to write a package-extracting front-end which is graphical and also has little progress meters and such which advance as each item is extracted from the archive).. But then again, I also promised myself I'd stay out of this discussion so I'll shut up now and continue to watch all of you debate this. :) -- Jordan K. Hubbard Engineering Manager, BSD technology group Apple Computer To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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