On 12/18/05, Steinar H. Gunderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 10:15:31PM +0100, Olaf van der Spek wrote: > > I guess what I'm asking is, why are tar and other applications using > > gzip instead of a generic library that handles all > > compression/decompression and can be easily extended. > > General complexity, I'd guess. If you want "easily extended", you'll have to > cope with dynamic, shared libraries -- look to NSS for a case on how evil > that can get. (And tar is really something you'd like to stay small and > simple.) Also, having to hunt down the right plug-in module for whatever > format somebody had the bright idea to use at some point can be a real pain. > (Ever had to use one of those "codec packs" for Micosoft Windows?) > > Besides, UNIX does this a different way, traditionally -- via separate > programs. "gzip -d file.tar.gz ; tar xf file.tar" gives you most of the same > functionality, with zero extra complexity. (Try --use-compress-program in GNU > tar, but that probably doesn't exist in anything else.)
I guess that's even easier. Just use/write a filter that looks at the header and invoke the right coder/decoder internally.
