[lug] [OT] archive formats

[Bear Giles]

Collins Richey wrote:

>On 3/28/06, Daniel Webb <lists at danielwebb.us> wrote:
>  
>
>>I'm still a bit shocked that Windows doesn't even recognize what tar
>>is, but I shouldn't be.
>>
>>Now why, pray tell, would you expect Windows to recognize a *nix file format?
>>    
>>
Now why, pray tell, would you call tar a "unix" file format?

It's an archive format, nothing more.   A simple one at that, one 
designed to be easily implemented on any system.  The headers have a few 
fields that Windows doesn't use, but which it can safely ignore.

(So what is a "unix" file format?  ELF files (executables and shared 
libraries) might count, but I thought that they are general enough that 
they can be used on non-Unix systems.  That's the only thing that occurs 
to me at the moment.)

Bear

P.S., on the original question I tend to use zip files unless I have a 
specific need to use tar, cpio, or another format.  But that may reflect 
the fact that I primarily code in java now and it has native support for 
reading and writing zip files.