Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!amdahl!nuchat!peter
From: peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: IFF archive proposal
Message-ID: <549@nuchat.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jan 88 03:03:53 GMT
References: <6173@j.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: Public Access - Houston, Tx
Lines: 41

In article <6173@j.cc.purdue.edu>, ain@j.cc.purdue.edu (Patrick White) writes:
>    Bryan Ford has been bouncing an IFF archive idea he had off of me for the
> last few weeks.  We finally decided to post it to get a wider base of opinions
> (and also because I don't know much about IFF formats).

> FORM ARC - Archive.

>    SBDR - Subdirectory.  This chunk contains a string of characters
>    ANAM - Archiver name.  This contains a null-terminated string telling
>    FORM ARC - A child ARC.  This is useful for "sub-archives" which, when
>    FORM FLST - File chunks.  These chunks contain the actual files which

What's wrong with putting a group of files into a CAT? That will also allow
smart IFF readers that dive into CATs and LISTs to use these guys unchanged.

Then you can do global compression on the resulting file. Global compression
is easier and more efficient than local compression.

Then you can add a "FORM FILE" or "FORM DIR " (I like mnemonic names, don't
you?) containing chunks like "FIB " (the FileInfoBlock for the file).

By putting the FIB in there you automatically get the name, date, protection,
and so on.

(sample pseudo IFFCheck output)
CAT  nnnn FILE
..FORM nnnn ILBM
...BMHD nnnn
...BODY nnnn
..FORM nnnn FILE
...FIB  nnnn
...FDAT nnnn
..FORM nnnn DIR
...FIB  nnnn
...FORM nnnn FILE
....FIB  nnnn
....FDAT nnnn
-- 
-- a clone of Peter (have you hugged your wolf today) da Silva  `-_-'
-- normally  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter                U
-- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.