Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pacbell!att-ih!ihnp4!islenet!uhccux!julian
From: julian@uhccux.UUCP (Julian Cowley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Standard format for ARCed files
Message-ID: <1667@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: 14 Mar 88 22:16:10 GMT
References: <5439@swan.ulowell.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Hawaii at Manoa
Lines: 33
Summary: arc format

In article <5439@swan.ulowell.edu>, boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu (SoftXc Coordinator) writes:
> I propose a standard format for ARCed files uploaded to comp.binaries.ibm.pc
> could be as follows:
> 
> 	1) The moderator would ARC the files using PKARC 3.5
> 	2) The moderator would use the MAKESFX program to create a
>            self-extracting archive.
> 
> This would eliminate the need for anyone to have a specific archive
> extractor, hopefully simplifying any problems.

As other people have pointed out, this would make it impossible to inspect
the files before downloading them to your PC.  The idea of a self-extracting
archive has generally been looked down upon by the PC community, basically
for the reason that it opens the doors for any Trojan (tm) horses.

A better method would be to use PKARC with the -oct switch.  Most arc programs
on Unix systems can handle this, and until the time when PKARC is available
for Unix, this would not create many problems for most people.

Also, it would be much nicer to have the uuencoded file saved within
the article as a shell archive.  This would make it much easier for a
multiple- part posting to be extracted from the system without having
to edit the individual files and concatenating them.  Or, a program
could be written for Unix that is compatible with the PC uudecode (by
R.E.M.), which supports multiple parts and also does a character
count.  Unfortunately, R.E.M. has not released the sources, so it
would have to be written from scratch.  Perhaps the moderator or any
other willing soul could find the time to write one?

 //////  /////  Julian Cowley, University of Hawaii   | That man's not 
    // //   //  ...!ihnp4!ucsd!nosc!uhccux!julian     | rappeling; that
\\ // //        julian@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu         | man's absolutely
 \X/   /////    julian@uhccux.bitnet                  | appalling!