Re: DEITY TEAM: Minor query re: .deb format
> >
> > I'd think the info-zip package would have been a better choice since you
> > can extract individual elements without uncomressing the whole mess and
> > you wouldn't need two layers of archiving.
> >
> I use the Midnight Commander for extracting single files from a *.deb
> file. I could probably do it as well on the command line using dpkg if
> i took the pain reading it's man page, but since MC does the trick and
> i'm eternally lazy... ;-) So where is the problem, please?
You can hide any amount of cruft behind a pretty front-end but it is
still cruft all the same. If you want a file out of the compressed
tar component you have to uncompress the whole stream to find it (after
the ar pass).
Info-zip (unlike gzip) can read it's directory (and comments, I think)
without having to uncompress anything, and you can uncompress/extract
individual elements without going through the whole stream. I don't
think it can maintain unix ownership/attributes like tar does but
you shouldn't be doing that directly in an installable package anyway.
The install mechanism should set them up as a separate operation.
Is it just the not-invented-here syndrome that keeps zip format from being
used more under unix?
Les Mikesell
les@mcs.com
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