🚀 go-pugleaf

Submitted-by: jac
Posting-number: Volume 1, Administrivia: 10

From: paul@atherton.com (Paul Sander)

Doug Gwyn's apack program is a good start, but I've found through experience
that it is better if such things insert a single character at the beginning
of each line (perhaps a blank or hyphen).  This character is then used as
a record selector; each part of the packed file uses a different character.
The header might use ">", the body might use " " (blank), and the checksum
might use "=".  I find that this is much more reliable than having a
sentinel, and works when the exact length of the file is not known in
advance (which is the case for DOS text files).

[ I don't know what the selector buys you.  Whenever you see a line
  beginning with a ^L not followed by another ^L (i.e. a source line
  beginning with ^L has another added to escape it) you know a new
  file is being unarchived.  The ">" vs " " distinction is not
  necessary here, unlike with shar.  As far as checksums go, this
  should be done by a separate program, and only if it turns out
  to be needed in practice. ]

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Jonathan A. Chandross
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