Re: Field compression
Robert Bihlmeyer <robbe@orcus.priv.at> wrote:
> What you've essentially done is replaced the plain-text available file
> with a binary format understood only by special tools (no more grep
> '^Package:'). I don't think the 2 % saving is worth that, especially
> when the gzip -> bzip2 move gives 11 % improvement.
It all adds up, every little helps.
> If going binary, you could just as well go the whole way - this will
> save much more: numbers like size and MD5sum no longer need to be
> represented inefficiently, package references (in Depends-like fields)
> simply contain an offset or id instead of the package name, etc.
That exactly what I was suggesting, the code I posted was just an experiment.
Am I right in saying that stuff in the packages files are all 7-bit, would
that help in compression.
> IMHO having a binary available file format for available may not be
> that bad an idea (strictly speaking, you're not supposed to mess with
> it directly, anyway), but a half-assed solution serves noone.
It was not a half-assed solution, it was a quick hack experiment.
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