Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!se-sd!rns
From: rns@se-sd.sandiego.NCR.COM (Rick Schubert)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Thanks, I'd rather do it myself
Message-ID: <1506@se-sd.sandiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 8 Apr 88 15:38:57 GMT
References: <2237@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Reply-To: rns@se-sd.sandiego.NCR.COM (Rick Schubert)
Organization: NCR Corp. Systems Engineering, San Diego
Lines: 21
Keywords: self extracting arc
Summary: Thanks, I'd rather use an existing tool

In article <2237@ttidca.TTI.COM> clark@ttidca.TTI.COM (Ralph Clark) writes:
>Here is a simple program to convert a self-extracting archive back into
>a regular you-can-run-arc--t-on-it-before-you-spend-an-hour-downloading-it
>archive. Inquiry to three local gurus failed to produce a simple one-line
>shell command alternative. It will undoubtedly fail if you ask it to delete
>a googolplex of bytes from the head of a file.
>
>9758 has been posted as the length of the extraction program - no doubt
>future or previous versions will vary. It is correct for skyplot.exe.
>
>Usage : lobotomy -9758 <skyplot.exe >skyplot.arc  (uudecoded first!)

Two points:

1. I assume lobotomy must be run on UNIX(tm), or at least not DOS(no tm?).
   The DOS C libraries I am familiar with (Lattice and Turbo) will do
   CR-LF -> LF conversion for stdin and LF -> CR-LF conversion for stdout,
   which is not very useful for non-text files.  To make this work with
   these libraries, you would have to open the input and output files as
   binary files.

2. You have just reinvented tail +9758c.