Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: BYTE's compressor/decompressor tests?  PKZIP vs. LHarc
Message-ID: <26062bfe@ralf>
Date: 20 Mar 90 12:11:26 GMT
Sender: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science
Lines: 27
In-Reply-To: <3657.26037c1b@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>

In article <3657.26037c1b@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>, tt3x@vax5.cit.cornell.edu wrote:
}seems as though LHarc 1.13C (despite what the article claims and shows)
}produces smaller files the majority of the time.  I don't know about
}the credibility of such tests but I've done a lot of PKZIPS and LHarcs
}and LHarcs seem more efficient despite its speed that most people
}don't like (it doesn't affect me because I have a 25 mhz 386).

In my experience, LHarc produces smaller archives when there are lots of
little files, while PKZIP produces smaller archives when there are only
a few large files in the archive.  For example, compressing my current
copy of the Interrupt List (a single text file of 652,503 bytes)
produces a 182,373-byte .LZH and a 166,570-byte .ZIP.

In general however, the difference between PKZIP, NoGate's PAK v2.x and
LHARC is only a few percent, and which one wins depends mainly on the
size and contents of the files being placed in the archive.  PKZIP has a
disadvantage on archives containing many small files because of its
greater per-file overhead (storing two copies of the housekeeping
information).

--
UUCP: {ucbvax,harvard}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=- 412-268-3053 (school) -=- FAX: ask
ARPA: ralf@cs.cmu.edu  BIT: ralf%cs.cmu.edu@CMUCCVMA  FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/46
"How to Prove It" by Dana Angluin              Disclaimer? I claimed something?
16. proof by cosmology:
    The negation of the proposition is unimaginable or meaningless.  Popular
    for proofs of the existence of God.