Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!lsr
From: lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Mac packing program. Could Mac handle it?
Message-ID: <12969@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 9 Apr 91 02:19:02 GMT
References: <1991Apr3.191534.21833@jhereg.osa.com> <231b3679.670804293@fergvax> <1991Apr6.115308.27161@sics.se>
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
Lines: 28

In article <1991Apr6.115308.27161@sics.se> boortz@sics.se (Kent Boortz) writes:
>
>Yes, self extracting archives is not the same as compressed executable
>files. I have tried lzexe on MSDOS. I run lzexe on a file foo.exe to
>compress it and add unpacking code to it.

You could do this on the Mac as well.  You would simply compress each CODE
resource and change the program entry point to a bit of code that
decompressed the resources before using them.  

>msdos programs that are small, I don't know). The delay starting a compressed
>version of PageMaker or Word will not be acceptable. Am I wrong?

Compression programs on the Mac compress everything.  If you compress
individual resources then the decompression time would be spread out.  (On
the other hand, you have to decompress the resource each time it's brought in.)

Compressing resources might even speed up program execution, depending on
the relative speeds of the disk and CPU.  If the CPU is very fast relative
to the disk, then the time you save in disk I/O (by loading a smaller
compressed resource) will be more than the time required to decompress it in
memory.

-- 
Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc.

lsr@apple.com
(or AppleLink: Rosenstein1)