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From: paul@cgh.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: pkarc v3.5 and arc v5.20
Message-ID: <426@cgh.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jun-87 01:19:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: cgh.426
Posted: Mon Jun 15 01:19:03 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jun-87 01:39:20 EDT
References: <4431@iuvax.UUCP> <206900039@mirror>
Reply-To: paul@cgh.UUCP (Paul Homchick)
Organization: Chimitt Gilman Homchick Inc., Radnor, PA
Lines: 32
Keywords: arc, zoo, pkarc, archives
Summary: Self Extracting ARCs are a Bad Idea

I have noticed the existence of more Self-Extracting-ARChives, and I
must report that I think this an unfortunate trend.  I say this for
several reasons:

  1.  With an ARC file, you can use "arc v" to get a directory list
      showing filenames and sizes.  with SelfExtractingARC.EXE, you
      cannot.

  2.  With an ARC file, you can extract only a portion of the files.
      On a floppy based system, this might be important.  With a
      a self-extracting file you cannot do this.

  3.  It give me a creepy feeling to download an EXE file from some
      remote system and then just go ahead and run it without checking
      it out, and it should give everyone else a creepy feeling, too.
      An error in transmission could cause the extraction part to work
      improperly, possibly causing corruption of one's hard disk.  Or,
      a trouble-maker could put a Trojan in the extractor part.  Not good.

  4.  Archive programs are handy things.  Not only can you take ARCs
      apart with them, you can put things into ARC files, too.  But you
      cannot put things into a self extracting file.  Since you need
      ARC or ARCA/E or ZOO (yeah!) anyway, you don't need the self
      extracting file.

On GEnie, we have banned self-extracting files from our libraries except
for the case of boot-strap distributions of the ARCHIVE utility programs
themselves.  (Also of interest: we do not allow PKARC files with SQUASHED
members in them, as these files cannot be unARC'd with ARC.EXE or ARCE.COM.
If it *says* FOO.ARC, it should *be* an ARC).

Paul Homchick, Sysop GEnie IBM RoundTable