On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 10:47:43PM -0800, Tim Kientzle wrote: > > P.S. It's galled me for a while that pkg_add has to fork 'tar' to > extract the archive. I've started piecing together a library that > reads/writes tarfiles. With this, it should be possible to make > pkg_add considerably more efficient. In particular, rather than > extracting to a temp directory, then parsing important information, > then moving the files, it should be possible using this library to > read the initial entries ("+CONTENTS", in particular) directly into > memory, process the information there, then extract the remainder of > the package files directly into their final locations. So far, I have > a library API outlined, and functional read support implemented. Next > step is to hack up a minimal tar implementation that uses it to make > sure everything's working correctly. > > So far, the library automatically detects compression formats (using > techniques like those in my pkg_install patch) and has some rough > support for detecting the archive format as well. (One goal of mine: > support for 'pax extended archives', which I understand can handle > ACLs.) > > Of course, such a library could also form the basis for a BSD-licensed > tar to replace GNU tar. I understand a few people have wanted such a > thing.
FYI, libtar[0] is BSD-licensed and might be useful to such a project. [0] - http://www-dev.cites.uiuc.edu/libtar/ Brandon D. Valentine -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.geekpunk.net Pseudo-Random Googlism: valentine is a champion of the true small online business _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"