Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!vsi1!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Compressed archive format Summary: too many Keywords: chinese menu Message-ID: <1990Aug25.180851.4401@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 25 Aug 90 18:08:51 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 49 Several years back, we made the transition from .arc to .zoo files, and for a while there was a lot of trouble with stuff being archived as .zoo's, but the zoo program not being widely distributed, and not often available on host computer systems. Eventually, it all got straightened out, and .arc's gave way to .zoo's. We're going through it again, but this time it's worse. The .zoo format is being replaced by _two_ formats, .lhw and .lzh, (and also by whatever PKAZIP writes, I suppose), but the archive executables are not widely distributed, and host computer versions (at least here) won't even compile and are several changes behind the Amiga versions. This is leading to a lot of confusion and reduced utility, which is a shame, since the new archivers do seem to save a significant amount of space. Could some kind soul 1) do a good set of benchmarks to see which is the most time/space efficient of the new archivers, and publish it here; 2) find and distribute the widely ported source code for the host executable; 3) find and distribute the source code and executables for the Amiga versions; and, most important, 4) pick _one_ new archiver/format we can all agree upon? Maintaining a chinese menu of archive software is not too useful, and archivers without source to fix the obvious bugs is less than stunningly helpful as well. If there is someone really into pain, going back through the abcfd20 archives and repacking everything into this common format would really be helpful, but from my own experience with a much more modest earlier form of those archives, the task could take several _months_ of someone's free time, so that's a lot to ask. Thanks; I'm getting really frustrated trying to keep up with the sudden profusion of archive formats; too much is coming past or put up for ftp that I couldn't unpack if I could download it, and not having a working version on my host system is the pits, as most of the file management stuff I do with zoo is suddenly not available, so that I have to download the headers and the uudecoded contents separately rather than sticking my usual POSTER.source, MAILER.source, or similar archival copy of the publication header into the archive, as I consistently do with .zoo archives. Kent, the man from xanth.