Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!geac!maccs!cs4g6ag
From: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PKZIP problem
Keywords: pkzip, archiving
Message-ID: <260E60AB.5835@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
Date: 26 Mar 90 18:34:19 GMT
References: <305@cancol.oz>
Reply-To: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn)
Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Lines: 24

In article <305@cancol.oz> eyal@cancol.oz (Eyal Lebedinski) writes:
$Reading the talk about lharc/pkzip I though I'll mention a problem I have
$with pkzip (1.02). If a file which is mainly uuencoded is pkziped it will be
$stored as is (0% compression). lharc (or pkarc for that matter) will recover
$most of the 25% overhead of the uuencoding process. This is why I do not use
$pkzip on most of my stuff (specialy when one remembers how fast pkzip is in
$relation to lharc [I use a 286/10]).

   I'd noticed PKZIP's inability to compress UUENCODEd files, having been
using V1.01 for a while.  So I was incredibly surprised when PKZIP V1.02
managed to compress a few by 10%, since the two programs are supposedly
identical.  It must have just been a fluke.

   However, I find myself wondering why you are compressing UUENCODEd
files.  If your point is to save space, you might as well run them
through UUDECODE and then archive the resulting file.  The only situation
I have encountered in which this is not practical is if you only have
some parts of a large UUENCODEd file and wish to store them temporarily
until the rest arrives.
-- 
Stephen M. Dunn                               cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
          <std_disclaimer.h> = "\nI'm only an undergraduate!!!\n";
****************************************************************************
    "So sorry, I never meant to break your heart ... but you broke mine."