Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!uunet!stanford.edu!agate!agate!adrianho From: adrianho@barkley.berkeley.edu (Adrian J Ho) Newsgroups: comp.compression Subject: Re: Archiver Message-ID: Date: 9 May 91 09:14:00 GMT References: <1991May7.201635.1180@cabezon.uucp> Sender: root@agate.berkeley.edu (Charlie Root) Distribution: comp.compression Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 34 In-Reply-To: mtpins@icaen.uiowa.edu's message of 8 May 91 18: 45:47 GMT In article mtpins@icaen.uiowa.edu (Michael T Pins) writes: >The old favorites tar and compress are probably already on your machine, >and do a decent job. Main advantage here is that it means anyone else on >a Unix box will be able to restore it without looking for special software. Plus, it'll work on all kinds of files. To understand why I made that remark, read on. >You could also use lharc, the sourcecode for which is on isca01.isca.uiowa.edu >in the unix directory. Lharc will do it in one sweep, compresses as well as >nearly anything available, and is readily available for Amigas/PCs/etc. >The downside is you'll probably need to install lharc, as will anyone else >who wants to restore it on another machine. There's another disadvantage: Lharc (at least UNIX V1.02) doesn't handle symbolic links properly -- it makes a copy of the linked-to file! A real pain if the linked-to file is HUGE, and VERY aggravating for archiving source distributions that you're working on -- I've personally torn a good part of my hair out trying to chase down a "bug", only to find that all my links to a recently-modified file had "mysteriously" turned into out-of-date copies of the same file! One more thing: Unix .lzh files will NOT unpack on other machines, due to the different file permission scheme used (things will work going the other way, though). I learnt this the hard way, too. 8-( My advice? If you're sticking to Unix, _and_ you don't use symbolic links, _and_ you're concerned with maximum compression, _and_ you're not concerned with speed, use lharc. Otherwise, stick with tar and compress -- this combo _works_. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adrian Ho, EECS (pronounced "eeks!") Dept. Phone: (415) 642-5563 UC Berkeley adrianho@barkley.berkeley.edu