Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!uw-entropy!dataio!pilchuck!toad!jgray
From: jgray@toad.pilchuck.Data-IO.COM (Jerry Late Nite Gray)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ZOO vs PKARC
Summary: Could ZOO be improved?
Message-ID: <973@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>
Date: 15 Aug 88 20:32:04 GMT
References: <3802@sdcc6.ucsd.EDU> <19807@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@Data-IO.COM
Lines: 65

In article <19807@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, mdf@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark D. Freeman) writes:
> In <3802@sdcc6.ucsd.EDU> ir230@sdcc6.ucsd.EDU (john wavrik) writes:
> >I've used PKARC because it is fast and because of the support program
> >PKFIND (it works like WHEREIS programs -- but will also search for a
> >file inside archive files).
> > ...
> 
> STUFF is a wonderful tool.  The only major thing left to put into ZOO
> is the ability to create needed directories.  It is a real drag to have
> to create all the needed directories manually before I can un-ZOO an
> archive.
> -- 

I've noticed the same limitation to the point I refuse to use ZOO. DOS is
such a pain there is no way to automate the process of CD'ing and MKDIR'ing
to hell and back just to unarchive a complex collection.
I tried experimenting with ZOO about a year ago and had hoped that this was
just a lack of maturity in the product and I might test it again when it grows
up. Sad to here that after a year it has not.

There is one possibility though. We both might be misusing the product.
How do all you ZOOites out there unpack a ZOO archive into non-existent
subdirectories?

I wonder if the present survey would show different results if someone would
publish a document showing how one does comparative operations in both tools
such as:

	1) Blind packing of everything in present directory down into one
		archive file.

	2) Same as (1) but onto multiple floppies, network (PC-NFS or NOVELL)
		drives and/or tape drives.

	3) Blind unpacking of archive (we don't know what sub-directories are
		needed).

	4) Archive inquiries. 
		a) a directory of everything on archive.
		b) intelligent file/directory searches with RE wild cards
			(i.e. unix like "FIL*[A-Z]*.*Q*" search strings)
		c) file/directory statistics (size, dates, CRC, etc.).

	5) IN general, how well it works with managing source and binaries
		on the net.

	6) Peculiarities in going from DOS and UNIX. I would love to hear if
		there is a good automatic algorithm for conversions of mixed
		case, longer than 8 character Unix filenames into DOS
		filenames.

That last one may seem odd, but I have often come across Unix based software
with the desire to someday port it to a PC. It is annoying to have to unpack
it, change the filename (and makefile) to fit DOS's conventions and repack it.

---------------
					Jerrold L. Gray

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