Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!ucsd!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!alberta!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!uoregon!stevev From: stevev@uoregon.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender) Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 to ban ARC files Message-ID: <2736@uoregon.uoregon.edu> Date: 10 Sep 88 06:27:42 GMT References: <6630@ihlpl.ATT.COM> Reply-To: stevev@drizzle.UUCP (Steve VanDevender) Distribution: na Organization: University of Oregon, Computer Science, Eugene OR Lines: 100 In article <6630@ihlpl.ATT.COM> db21@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Beyerl) writes: > Before we adopt some new standard for creating 'archive' >type files, I think we need to consider more than just 'is it >faster?' and 'does it produce more compact files?'. I believe we >also need to consider how easy the program is to use. Along with >that is how easy is its name(s) to remember. With ARC and PKARC >there are one, maybe two, easily remembered names. For ZOO there >are a number of non-relating names which the user has to be >familiar with. I have found this somewhat confusing and as a >result have developed the following memory aide to keep tract of >all the pieces: > > "Arch tool [arctool] used by dogs [arff] while > drinking [fiz, booz] at the zoo [zoo] and saying [sez] > loose [looz] rhyme, the alphabet [atoz], and other > stuff [stuff]." > > I am sorting this out, but I still don't feel comfortable >in adopting as our standard a program that has so many pieces and >non-relating names. Perhaps Rahul, as he improves the program, >could pull this altogether under one, integrated package. > > Dave Beyerl > ihnp4!ihlpl!db21 Things aren't so complicated as you seem to think, or, at least, the ZOO system is no more complex than the ARC/PKARC systems. ARCTOOL and ARFF aren't even part of Rahul Dhesi's ZOO system. ARFF will work with ZOO files since it uses the archive program of your choice to inspect archives; ARCTOOL won't even work on ZOO archives. ZOO performs all the archiving functions of ARC or PKARC/PKXARC. If you have ZOO, you're as well off as if you had ARC or any of its variants (and in some ways, better off). This is the one, integrated package you're looking for, and the one name you need to remember. LOOZ might be thought of as analogous to the ARCE program--it's just a small, quick program that only unpacks ZOO archives. However, it doesn't do anything ZOO doesn't and is just there if you want to unpack your ZOO archives a little faster, or don't want to make ZOO archives, just extract them. BOOZ is a stripped-down ZOO which is mainly of use to people with tiny machines. It isn't something most ZOO users would need or want. FIZ is roughly like an ARCTOOL for ZOO files. It will scan damaged ZOO archives or self-extracting archives and find directory and data blocks, so you can use ZOO to extract files from them. The ability of ZOO to extract from a self-extracting archive is unique--I've never heard of a way to do it with ARC or PKXARC. ATOZ is also unique among archiving tools--I never saw a utility that let people convert from the LBR format to ARC, anyway. Having just converted my archives to ZOO format myself, I can vouch for its usefulness. STUFF is part of the MS-DOS ZOO distribution and is simply a utility that creates filename lists that ZOO uses to pack a subdirectory tree. If you want to use ZOO just like you used ARC, you don't need STUFF. My experience with ZOO has been positive so far. It's almost as fast as PKARC and compresses almost as well as PKARC but better than ARC. Since I do a lot of transfers between DOS and UNIX, I like that ZOO has been developed and tested under UNIX. Since our site also has a VMS system, I'd recommend it for transferring files to VMS, too (if I can get ahold of the VMS version). After some reflection, I think that SIMTEL20's decision to ban ARC files in favor of whatever Phil Katz comes up with next may not be wise. When C source for ZOO is available now, and has been already debugged and tested, and isn't a commercial product or even shareware, it seems to me to be the best choice for a new archiving system, if that's what's really needed. I honestly don't think that the ARC format will go away anytime soon--I'm certainly holding on to my copies, whether it's politically correct or not. With a little convoluted reasoning, one might argue that it would be best to abandon the ARC format because PKARC (now PKPAK) may soon be illegal, and most would rather use it than painfully slow ARC, so let's switch to something else that will be equally fast . . . but it seems to be more in the spirit of a boycott in protest of SEA's recent actions. Why did I convert to ZOO? All of the recent discussion has made me aware of its capabilities and features, and it sounded far more intelligent than either ARC or PKARC. I've lately gotten tired of having to remember to type PKPAK and PKUNPAK; I could have renamed them, but I prefer to stick with the distribution names of programs. I also found the inconsistencies between PKPAK and PKUNPAK to be a bit annoying--mostly that PKPAK used options without dashes, and PKUNPAK required options with dashes. And, admittedly, I became a little dubious of both ARC and the PK stuff after reading about all the recent brouhaha. From my experience with ZOO in my private use so far, I'd recommend it as the file archiver of choice. If everyone is really serious about abandoning ARC, I'd also hope that people switch to ZOO instead of an archiver that isn't even out yet. -- Steve VanDevender uoregon!drizzle!stevev stevev@oregon1.BITNET "Bipedalism--an unrecognized disease affecting over 99% of the population. Symptoms include lack of traffic sense, slow rate of travel, and the classic, easily recognized behavior known as walking."