bobmon@iucs.UUCP (Che' Flamingo) (07/16/87)
(Background: PKARC's Squashing is incompatible with SEA's ARC. Henderson's ARC has been ported to Un*x, so foo.ARC files can be manipulated on Un*x systems unless they include Squashed files. But why manipulate .ARC files on a Un*x system?) I use archiving for much more than merely MSDOS binaries. It compresses text files very well, regardless of what the text is or where it came from. Many Un*x systems have programs to do the same thing; 'compress' is one, that does ZLW compression and does it (often) better than ARC or PKARC. HOWEVER -- ARC/PKARC not only compress files, they also group them according to my preferences, so that I can handle one file with multiple components in it. This is a major organizational boon to me. On top of that, the nicely compressed and packaged files can be conveniently crossloaded with my MSDOS machine, and used there. And a last, minor convenience is that ARC/PKARC leave the original file in place, so I can "checkpoint" into a .ARC file and continue with whatever I'm doing without having to do explicit copies and renames and stuff. All of this makes me want to maintain compatibility between the ARC on Un*x and whatever I use at home, and for now that means no Squashing.