Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!dalcs!holmes
From: holmes@dalcs.UUCP (Ray Holmes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Stuffit file extractor program for Unix posted
Message-ID: <2808@dalcs.UUCP>
Date: 9 Mar 88 03:01:49 GMT
References: <7178@oberon.USC.EDU> <1988Mar2.115040.11949@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> <530@psu-cs.UUCP> <1051@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <1988Mar8.130410.17242@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: holmes@dalcs.UUCP (Ray Holmes)
Distribution: na
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Lines: 26

In article <1988Mar8.130410.17242@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> wbell@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Warren Bell) writes:
>In article <1051@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> km@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu.UUCP (Ken Mitchum) writes:
>> [ ... ]
>>There already is a "tar" available for the mac, which works uses the same
>>formats as the "tar" on Unix systems, and can be used to archive entire
>>directories and subdirectories. It will work only with text files, however.
>>It is much faster than Stuffit, as there is no file compaction - extracting
>>a 1mb tar file of 60 - 70 files and two directories takes about 45 seconds
>>on a MacII.
>Well, the massive-of-filenames problem is solved by this, but it doesn't
>do compression, which saves time (and money) in downloading. 

However, while the TAR files are about 30% larger than the sum of the
individual files, if "stuffit" is applied to the TAR file, the sit file is
generally smaller than a "stuffit" of all the individual files.  As TAR
also preserves all of the directory (folder) hierarchy information, I find
that TAR at least is invaluable and compression certainly helps.

[P.S. Don't do as I did and (by accident) gave the command to create a
 TAR file of my entire disk -- VERY FAST (about 1 sec/MBy as I recall) but
 my disk never recovered (about 8 MBy missing until reformat)]

Ray Holmes, Department of Math., Stats., & C.S., Dalhousie U., Halifax, N.S.
holmes@dalcs.UUCP			BITNET or UUCP
holmes@cs.dal.cdn			BITNET or CDN
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