ljdickey@water.UUCP (02/21/87)
Not too long ago someone posted code for "shar" that was said to compile both on a vax and on the ST. I would like to pose the question: Why use shar? The uses of "shar" that I have seen in this group have been to bundle several files together and do some trivial checking, such as counting characters, and of those that I have looked at in this group, every one has given some error report. I count that as unreliable. On the other hand, some people have used "arc" and "uuencode" and most of the things I have looked at that use these programs have worked. The "arc" program has some error checking in it, and it seems to be better than the checking used by people here using "shar". Just on the surface, it looks like "uuencode" and "arc" are more useful than "shar". I would like to hear a defense of "shar". -- Prof. L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo. ljdickey@water.UUCP ljdickey%water@waterloo.CSNET ljdickey%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA ljdickey@water.BITNET
atwell@utah-cs.UUCP (02/23/87)
In article <799@water.UUCP> ljdickey@water.UUCP writes: > >Just on the surface, it looks like "uuencode" and "arc" are more useful >than "shar". I would like to hear a defense of "shar". > There is a lot of C code that is available in net.sources and mod.sources that uses shar. If someone wants to port the code to the ST, it is REALLY nice to be able to download the shar archive in one big hunk then unshar it. That's why I like shar on the ST: it beats downloading a whole bunch of files. (Or is there a better way I don't know about?) Bart
pes@bath63.UUCP (02/23/87)
Ok, a short defense of shar. If shar is used, then even if the transmitted file is mini-munged it is usually possible to recover at least any contained ASCII files -- source, docs, etc. Even if the damage occurs within one of those bits, it can often be made right with a little thought and a look at the context. ARC'ed files, on the other hand, are virtually impossible to repair if damaged in transit. ARC's are quite nice, both because of the compression (though a lot of that is lost by the subsequent UUENCODE), and because the error-checking means that if your file does unARC, you can be sure that what you got out was what the originator put in. But they're incredibly more frustrating when they break. (Not to mention, the ASCII parts of SHARs can be used by anyone with an editor -- whereas the ARCs require you to have both UUDECODE and ARC.)
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP (02/23/87)
SHAR is the USENET standard for putting several programs together (you don't usually worry about data compression since most backbone sites automatically compress/decompress when relaying articles) ARC is the generic BBS standard for putting several programs together and for compacting them. -Matt
preston@felix.UUCP (02/23/87)
>I would like to pose the question: Why use shar?
Simply because you can look at a shar file directly to see if the
shar'd stuff is of interest or not. For those people where the process
of getting stuff from news into their ST is time-consuming or expensive,
the shar'd file is a big win.
A secondary consideration might be the cost to the net of shipping the
shar'd or arc'd file(s). I believe that Unix sites generally run the
news articles through a file compression program. Generally,
compressing a text file will result in a smaller file than compressing
an already compressed file. So arc'd collections of files may be
_more_ expensive distribute through news than shar'd files.
With the problems I have occasionally had with shar'd files, I tend to
prefer using arc. On the other hand, it is quite easy for me to get
things from news articles into my ST. I would expect other people to
feel differently.
========================================
Preston L. Bannister
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GEnie : p.bannisterrenner@uiucdcsb.UUCP (02/24/87)
> Just on the surface, it looks like "uuencode" and "arc" are more useful > than "shar". I would like to hear a defense of "shar". > --(ljdickey@water.uucp) As far as I know, the only thing "shar" has that "arc" doesn't have is the ability to preserve subdirectory structure. With "arc", everything is unpacked into one directory, and any subdirectory structure is lost. Scott Renner renner@uiuc.edu {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner