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From: jvc@mirror.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PKARC 3.5 -g option
Message-ID: <206900064@mirror>
Date: Mon, 20-Jul-87 08:47:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: mirror.206900064
Posted: Mon Jul 20 08:47:00 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Jul-87 04:47:53 EDT
References: <23599@sun.uucp>
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Nf-ID: #R:sun.uucp:-2359900:mirror:206900064:000:2156
Nf-From: mirror.UUCP!jvc    Jul 20 08:47:00 1987


>BUT, did SEA blithely declare compatibility, and *KEEP THE SAME
>EXTENSION* (.ARC), even in the face of obvious user confusion
>and angst?
>                         Terry Sterkel

Yep.  Try using ARC 3.* to unarchive a file archived by ARC 4.* or
ARC 5.*.  "Compressing" was added in version 4.0 making it impossible
for ARC 3.0 to unarchive any files packed by this new technique.
The extention of the archive, however, remained the same.  Imagine
the "obvious user confusion" that this caused; one couldn't use
SEAware's ARC to unarchive archives archived by SEAware's ARC.

As for changing the extention, this would only help in the short term
because either SEAware will remain stuborn and their product will die
or they'll wise up and add "unsquashing" ability to their product.
If their product dies, then the extentions won't matter since PKARC
can unarc ARC archives.  If SEA adds unsquashing, then the different
extentions will be ignored and people will use their favorite unarcer
first and if that doesn't work they'll try the other unarcer (and if
that doesn't work, they'll look for new versions of both programs
[remember, ARC 3.0 couldn't unarchive ARC 4.0 archives]).  So,
changing extentions won't be a long term solution and in fact will 
probably cause more confusion.

Maybe a solution would be to add a string to the archive that
would indicate which program and what version created the archive.
If each unarchiver would print this string if it discovered that
it was unable to unarchive one or more files, then it would help
the user to figure out what was wrong.
However, if SEA won't add unsquashing then they won't add this feature
either.

jvc@mirror.tmc.com

NOTE:  it was mentioned somewhere in this group that PKARC had trouble
       with insufficient memory errors.  I got email (apparently)
       from phil stating that this was indeed a bug in version 2.0.
       This bug was a result of the Lattice compiler and not with
       the code (I won't waste the time relaying the explanation of
       the bug because this bug doesn't appear to be in version 3.5.
       Contact phil directly if you want the explanation.)