Zipping Up an LC standalone program

[Tim Jones]

On Apr 10, 2012, at 4:02 PM, Mark Schonewille wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Tar is a bad idea because it glues files together and doesn't compress. Tar was invented to allow gzip to compress multiple files. It is easier and faster to use the zip command line tool rather than to use both tar and gzip. Many unix geeks still prefer tar+gzip but I'm not sure why.

Wha???

"tar" (Tape ARchiver) has been around since before we even considered compression schemes.  It wasn't until the Linux / FreeBSD movement that compression options were added.  On most systems still using AT&T tar sources, you have to compress an archive after tar creates it and decompress an archive before tar can extract its contents.

We prefer tar and a compressor because it allows up to properly bundle up bits of code, regardless of the file types, and share them with others while reduing the overall footprint required on disk and for transfer.  The tar app is available in one form or another on every platform out there, so you can pretty much always open another's tarball.

In fact, I believe Dennis' original PDP MULTIX 9-track install tapes used a precursor to the modern tar format.

Tim