From owner-freebsd-stable Mon Mar 23 14:37:31 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA28891 for freebsd-stable-outgoing; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 14:37:31 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ns1.yes.no (ns1.yes.no [195.119.24.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA28869 for ; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 14:37:17 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from eivind@bitbox.follo.net) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by ns1.yes.no (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA07272; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 22:36:43 GMT Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id XAA20374; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 23:36:39 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <19980323233639.18183@follo.net> Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 23:36:39 +0100 From: Eivind Eklund To: Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC , Derek Flowers Cc: software@kew.com, stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Binary package updates, etc. References: <199803232209.PAA27779@xmission.xmission.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.89.1i In-Reply-To: <199803232209.PAA27779@xmission.xmission.com>; from Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC on Mon, Mar 23, 1998 at 03:09:27PM -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk On Mon, Mar 23, 1998 at 03:09:27PM -0700, Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC wrote: > o Should we use binary diffs? (What are binary diffs?) > > Binary diffs mean that we could send out just the bytes in any changed > file, rather than the whole file. For many updates, where you are > changing only a few small features in a large binary, the diff could > be quite a bit smaller. > > This is a cool idea, and would save users a lot of download time in > the future. On the other hand, binary diff utilities are non-trivial > to create. I'd say if we can find binary diff and patch utilities to > add to the system, use them, but it's not worth delaying the > implementation to wait for this feature. We can always add it in the > future, as an update. ;^) I've not been able to find any Open Source binary diff/patch systems. Implementing one is actually not too hard. You do an LZ77 (or LZW, but that strands you in patent-land) compression with the old executable considered a string pool. It should be only an evening or two's worth of work, if you've done LZ-compression before and know the tricks. Eivind. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message