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From: rs@mirror.TMC.COM (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Usenet and ARC'd files
Message-ID: <3540@mirror.TMC.COM>
Date: Thu, 30-Apr-87 11:06:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: mirror.3540
Posted: Thu Apr 30 11:06:10 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 2-May-87 11:11:51 EDT
Followup-To: news.misc
Organization: Mirror Systems, Cambridge MA
Lines: 40
Xref: mnetor news.admin:374 news.misc:345 comp.sys.amiga:4346

Last week I posted an article in comp.sys.amiga saying that posting
ARC'd files increases the transmission costs to most Usenet sites.  In
subsequent e-mail exchanges I have been called a fool, a jerk, and a
liar.  Needless to say, this bothers me a bit.

So, can anyone explain to me the flaw in the following scenarios?
Send follow-ups to news.misc, or to me for summary.

METHOD ONE:
Create an archive:
    arc a ARCFILE *.[cho]
    -rw-rw-rw-  1 rs       113148 Apr 28 10:36 ARCFILE.arc
Run it through uuencode, so I can post it as a Usenet article:
    uuencode ARCFILE.arc <ARCFILE.arc >UU-ARCFILE.arc-UU
    -rw-rw-rw-  1 rs       155922 Apr 28 10:39 UU-ARCFILE.arc-UU
I will now be posting a 156K file to Usenet.  Anyone who is curious about
this program must run ARC before they can do anything with material
herein.  When my site sends this out to other sites, it will run compress
on it.  This the resulting file sent via UUCP will be this size:
    -rw-rw-rw-  1 rs       142769 Apr 28 10:43 ARCFILE.arc.Z

METHOD TWO:
Convert all object files to ASCII and make a shell archive out of them:
    for I in *.o; do uuencode $I <$I >UU-$I-UU; done
    shar *.[ch] UU-*.o-UU >SHARFILE
    -rw-rw-rw-  1 rs       296960 Apr 28 10:38 SHARFILE
I will now be posting a 297K file to Usenet.  Most of the files in this
article will be sources that can be directly read by anyone who receives
the article.  When I send this out, my news transmission will compress the
file, resulting in something this size:
    -rw-rw-rw-  1 rs       115665 Apr 28 10:46 SHARFILE.Z

This is a net savings of almost 20% that will be realized by the vast
majority of sites on the Usenet -- those that compress their articles
before sending them.
-- 
--
Rich $alz					"Drug tests p**s me off"
Mirror Systems, Cambridge Massachusetts		rs@mirror.TMC.COM
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