Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!convex!rosenkra From: rosenkra@convex.com (William Rosencranz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Major Problems Unpacking 'lzh' Files Keywords: archivers lharc arc zoo banter banter banter Message-ID: <1991Jan09.215647.5890@convex.com> Date: 9 Jan 91 21:56:47 GMT References: <10472@lanl.gov> <1991Jan08.061722.26635@convex.com> <1991Jan8.153539.19118@wam.umd.edu> <1991Jan09.010526.15973@convex.com> <1991Jan9.090428.29529@wam.umd.edu> Sender: news@convex.com (news access account) Organization: Convex Computer Corporation; Richardson, TX Lines: 100 Nntp-Posting-Host: convex1.convex.com In article <1991Jan9.090428.29529@wam.umd.edu> dmb%wam.umd.edu@uunet.uu.net (David M. Baggett) writes: >>>pathnames for you. Not that this is CRUCIAL if there are more than >>>113 files in the archive, since directories can only have 113 files >>>in them, max. >>does zoo have this file limit restriction? i KNOW tar does not... >It's DOS (and therefore, for compatibility, TOS) that has the file >limit restriction. Only 113 files in a FAT. Or is it 112? In any >case, don't ask me why. i thought this restriction was only for the root directory of a disk, not subdirectories. but my memory, as usual, is fuzzy, and i have no way right now of verifying this. i know u can have more than 113 files in a hd partition, though i can't be sure if u can have more than 113 files in total on a floppy, even if they are in directories. easy enuf to test, however. are u saying that lharc has a restriction of 113 files in one of its directories because a user may potentially unpack it in the root dir and hence have problems? if that is the case, then all archivers will have the same problem. since i have not unpacked an archive in a root dir for years, i have never seen this. and i would guess that since most archives do not have this many files anyway (perhaps TeX fonts is an exception), this would probably rarely cause any problems. how does lharc deal with this? does it restrict u when creating the archive? and if so, is this also in the unix version? i have no idea how this works with arc/zoo either. just curious... >>i performed similar tests on a variety of file sizes/types and found that >>lharc was 5-10% smaller, but 50% slower (or more :-() at creating the >>archives. > >I guess I'm just hallucinating, then. no, dave, it just might be the files i tested and the date i tested them (when lharc just came out, like a year ago or so). i tried files ranging from 1k to 120k, text, programs (.ttp), and some binary files (16-bit sound samples). i thought it was reasonably comprehensive test, but it could have been an anomoly, from what i have seen you guys saying the last couple of days. it could also be that the compression itself improved from 0.62 (or whatever it was) to now. i do know, however, that no matter what file was compressed, it was REAL S-L-O-W at *packing*. i mean at least 2x slower. i distinctly remember lharc taking 6 min on a file that zoo did in around 2 min. still, it was a long time ago, so this is more of an impression than fact. >>> [self-extracting archives are great] >> >>NO, NO, NO, NO!!! >> >>i don't like the idea of self extracting archives because it just makes >>it more likely to pick up a virus this way. > >In the case of SFX, I don't see how this is relevant. It's not like >an "autoexec.bat" is stored in the archive, it just has a 3K hunk >of code to extract the archive from the appended LZH file data. >The self-extracting part doesn't have any special power. This is no >more prone to virus-spreading than any other form of archiving. it is one more program to run, and extremely easy to fiddle with. from what i know about these archives, it is just "cat unpacker archive >file". is there any software to do checksums or compares on those 3k hunks? is the source to that 3k hunk PD? it would make me feel a little safer at least. i am reluctant to run any software i do not compile myself, if at all possible. i can trust an archiver, but not necessarily a self-extracting archive. are there tools available to strip this thing off (yes, i just remembered seeing one...never mind...). >Like I said, I'm running LHarc under Ultrix. Many ST owners, however, >don't use Unix and don't want to. Maybe the WILL learn the hard >way that Unix is IT, but that doesn't change the current situation, >which is that a lot of ST owners find Unix confusing and needlessly >complex. (Heck, a lot of ST owners still don't want multitasking.) well, maybe i am more of a unix bigot than i thought. also i like to try and look to the future, rather than the here and now - another thing that gets me in trouble :-). >The other problem is that many Atari owners seem to be quite isolated from >the Unix world. I'm not talking about Usenet folks, but rather the >people who have their ST's to do some word processing, play games, and agreed. but a well designed system will work no matter what knowledge level a person may be at. ok, ok, uncle. i'll quit my moaning on this and get the latest unix version. i may even hack it up to my liking (yet another version!). and i promise to broaden my scope to include non-technical people from now on :-)... adios... -bill rosenkra@convex.com -- Bill Rosenkranz |UUCP: {uunet,texsun}!convex!c1yankee!rosenkra Convex Computer Corp. |ARPA: rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com