Request for Comments: libarchive, bsdtar

[David Schultz]

On Thu, Jan 15, 2004, Tim Kientzle wrote:
> David Schultz wrote:
> >
> >... the package tools don't have an archive format
> >that supports random access, so they wind up extracting a
> >temporary copy of the whole archive, then processing the parts
> >that they want.
> 
> <grin> Funny you should mention this.
> 
> As it turns out, random access is not necessary to avoid the
> temporary copy.  To prove it, I've written a pkg_add replacement
> that extracts directly to the final location in a single
> pass with no temporary directory and no need for random
> access to the package file.  In particular, it can extract
> and install a package directly from stdin or an FTP site
> with no disk overhead at all.
[...]
> My goal right now is just to clean up the existing package tools.
> In particular, my new package tools will:
>   * have the same names as the current tools
>   * use the same command-line options (as far as possible <sigh>)
>   * use the exact same file format as the current tools
>   * be built from general-purpose modular library components

I have only one thing to say in response to this news:

SWEEEEET!