Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!eplrx7!udel!gatech!uflorida!mailrus!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi
From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Zoo utilities (Was: Re: DESCRIBE.TXT)
Keywords: zoo, atoz, bilf, fiz, stuff, booz, looz
Message-ID: <4858@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 23 Nov 88 15:55:18 GMT
References: <NELSON.88Oct30195427@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <7377@dasys1.UUCP> <3974@drivax.UUCP> <1057@bcd-dyn.UUCP> <6719@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 34

In article <6719@spool.cs.wisc.edu> thaler@speedy.cs.wisc.edu (Maurice Thaler)
writes:
>If a subdir is empty, there are
>no files, so why should stuff list it? Fastback is the same way. My
>solution to both of these is to creat a 1 BYTE bogus file to hold the
>subdir.

The original intent of zoo was to store *files*, and the only purpose
of storing directory names was to be able to put back the *files* where
they came from.  So failure to archive empty directories should be
thought of as a feature.  However, now that people are using zoo for
making backups (not an originally-intended use), I agree that empty
directories should be preserved.  It will come.

Meanwhile, don't create a one-byte bogus file to hold the subdirectory.
Create a zero-byte bogus file instead, and save yourself a cluster's
worth of disk space.

A zero-byte file may be created using DEBUG.COM as follows:

     C:/SCR> debug bogus.fil
     File not found
     -w
     Writing 0000 bytes
     -q
     C:/SCR>

You type "debug bogus.fil" at the MS-DOS prompt, and you also type
"w" and "q" to DEBUG.

You could do the same with a proper implementation of the TOUCH
command.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi