From owner-freebsd-arch Sun Jul 7 21:10:17 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8E5637B400 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 2002 21:10:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu [18.24.4.193]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E569A43E42 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 2002 21:10:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu) Received: from khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (8.12.3/8.12.3) with ESMTP id g684AERC028360; Mon, 8 Jul 2002 00:10:14 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu) Received: (from wollman@localhost) by khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (8.12.3/8.12.3/Submit) id g684ADZt028359; Mon, 8 Jul 2002 00:10:13 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from wollman) Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 00:10:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Garrett Wollman Message-Id: <200207080410.g684ADZt028359@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> To: mark@thuvia.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: Package system flaws? In-Reply-To: <200207080334.g683YQsg042547@dotar.thuvia.org> Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science Cc: arch@freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In article <200207080334.g683YQsg042547@dotar.thuvia.org> you write: >It made me sit up and think, but you almost certainly have to extend pax(1) >to realise the extensions (correct me if I'm wrong), and I rather like a >format I can script with existing utilities. Not at all. You certainly *could* do it that way, but whether it's worth it to do so depends greatly on what it is that you want to do (that you have declined to share) with the archives other than installing them. Using the pax headers to store package metainformation is no more difficult to deal with than using the comment field in a ZIP archive's directory to do the same thing. If you're just examining the package, you can use a purpose-built tool to get the metainformation out, and if you don't need that, you don't need the tool either. The pax specification provides that unrecognized extension headers are to be ignored. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | [G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of wollman@lcs.mit.edu | chemical processes. Genes do not make ``novelty- Opinions not those of| seeking'' or any other complex and overt behavior. MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message