Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!cs.dal.ca!silvert From: silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Archivers (was: Re: LHARC problems ....) Message-ID: <1990May31.141123.12056@cs.dal.ca> Date: 31 May 90 14:11:23 GMT Article-I.D.: cs.1990May31.141123.12056 References: <102502@convex.convex.com> <734@zinn.MV.COM> Sender: silvert@cs.dal.ca.UUCP (Bill Silvert) Reply-To: bill%biomel@cs.dal.ca Organization: Habitat Ecology Div., Bedford Inst. of Oceanography Lines: 27 In article <734@zinn.MV.COM> kgg@zinn.MV.COM (Kenn Goutal) writes: [several comments about the use and functionality of different archivers] ZOO is used a lot both here and in the PC newsgroups. Both it and LHARC support directory structures, which is a great help if you are sending a large package with source code, docs, etc. In addition, both ZOO and LHARC support self-extracting archives, at least in the PC implementations. ZOO requires a supplementary program (SEZ), but LHARC does everything in one package. My favourite all-around archiver is ZOO. The main reasons are: Portability -- I can read the same archive under Unix, ST, PC. Written in C, I can port it to other systems. Directory support (as mentioned above). However, for the PC alone I prefer LHARC, both for ease of building self-extracting archives and, above all, for superb compression. Almost always, LHARC writes the smallest archives. But I agree that it is not a great choice for a newsgroup, because of the portability problems. So I recommend that we use ZOO as much as possible, with ARC maintained for backwards compatibility. -- William Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division, Bedford Inst. of Oceanography P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2. Tel. (902)426-1577 UUCP=..!{uunet|watmath}!dalcs!biomel!bill BITNET=bill%biomel%dalcs@dalac InterNet=bill%biomel@cs.dal.ca