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Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!jimomura
From: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: A standard OS-9 Archive Format
Message-ID: <1209@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-May-86 21:27:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1209
Posted: Fri May  9 21:27:37 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 9-May-86 23:40:24 EDT
References: <1205@lsuc.UUCP> <11609@amdcad.UUCP>
Reply-To: jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Organization: Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto
Lines: 39
Xref: utcs net.micro.6809:823 net.micro.68k:1656
Summary: In That Case, 'par' OK

In article <11609@amdcad.UUCP> jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) writes:
>In article <1205@lsuc.UUCP> jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) writes:
>>
>>     I noted the posting of 'par.c' and 'archx.c' to mod.sources recently.
>>I have never used either.  Furthermore, my Unix node doesn't support
>>..
>>I don't like System V 'ar' format because it seems to use unprintable
>>ASCII characters for something.  According to the documentation of 'archx.c',
>>it doesn't.  As such, I'd like to propose usage of 'archx.c' as a standard
>>archive format for OS-9'ers.
>
>The par.c mechanism uses the BSD ar format for the file. This format,
>unlike the SysV ar format, is pure ascii. i.e. if the files par'ed
>together are all ascii files, the entire file is ascii.

     In that case, it sounds fine.

>My feelings about this are that this allows use of par'ed files on BSD
>machines using ar, and BSD ar files on machines (such as my mac) using unpar.
>
>I'm porting par/unpar to the Mac, if you care (as a single program). I
>previously ported fpack to the Mac, for approximately the same use but it
>doesn't support checksums.
>
>I've ported par/unpar to a 68020 based BSD machine (which still uses the 
>v7 ar for some reason), and found the checksum algorithm works there.


     That's essentially what I wanted to find out.  If there's been
a substantial effort in that direction, then I think we should use
'par.c' for a standard archive.  I didn't know how much work had been
done in either direction.

     Any other comments either way?
-- 
James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto
ihnp4!utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
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