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From: rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Why "shar: Shell Archive  (v1.22)" is bad
Message-ID: <1979@prune.bbn.com>
Date: 19 Sep 89 19:21:38 GMT
Organization: BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation
Lines: 28

I'm finishing up the "final" release of my cshar tools.  This is what
I generally use to pack things up for posting to comp.sources.unix.
Working on that, plus the metrics posting that just went out, has led
me to make the following request:
    If at all possible, please don't submit sources to comp.sources.unix
    that are generated with the above tool (I don't know it's common name,
    it's not the RogueMonster one, it's not my cshar) -- the one that
    uses s2_seq.tmp files to unpack things in sequence.
    
There are two reasons for this:
	1.  It generates complex /bin/sh constructs:
		( read Scheck
		  if test "$Scheck" != $CurArch
		  then echo "Please unpack part $Scheck next!"
		       exit 1;
		  else exit 0; fi
		) < s2_seq_.tmp || exit 1
	    my shell parser can't parse this, and I doubt any non-sh
	    parser can.

	2.  If a piece is missing, the whole archive is useless until
	    it shows up.  This is often a waste of time; you might as
	    well let folks start examining the other files.

/r$
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