Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!world!robjung
From: robjung@world.std.com (Robert K Jung)
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: ARJ 2.00 and portability
Message-ID: <1991Apr21.015557.25861@world.std.com>
Date: 21 Apr 91 01:55:57 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Lines: 28

>>The main goals of ARJ are to provide as much practical compression as
>>is possible on an IBM PC machine and as many features as practical.
 
>How about UN*X compatibility?  There are ZOO, ARC, LHARC, and ZIP (although
>not by Phil Katz, of course) programs available for UN*X systems, however
>I haven't seen any source code for ARJ.
 
>The question is: is ARJ designed for portability?
>If not, then it should be optimized to deal with PC-specific data;
>otherwise, it should be ported to other OS's.
 
Yes, ARJ has been designed for portability.  ARJ is coded in STANDARD C
(ANSI) using STANDARD C library calls with all environment dependent
functions in a separate source file with implementations for the PC and for
the generic OS.  An early version of ARJ was ported successfully to a
minicomputer with only a few hours of programming time.
 
Source code for a STANDARD C version of a simple ARJ archive extraction
program has been released with ARJ 2.00.  When someone ports that to UN*X,
users will be able to archive PC text files with the -t1 (C text mode)
option of ARJ and transport them to UN*X boxes for extraction.
 
Source code for a simple version of ARJ may be available later this year,
but financial issues weigh heavily in this decision.  I would like to see
some financial return on the heavy programming investment.
 
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robjung@world.std.com (Robert K Jung)