As in, the Tape ARchiver.

I was experimenting with Haskell's packaging system yesterday, when I 
discovered that when you ask it to build a package file, it actually 
expects to find an executable called "TAR.EXE" in the current search 
path. Obviously, no such thing exists. This is Windoze, not Unix.

When I asked about it in the Haskell IRC channel, I got attacked by 
several fanboys telling me that Tar is The One True Archiver, and that 
all others are Inferior to the Ultimate Perfection that is TAR.

Personally, I thought Tar was completely obsolete now?

On the other hand, other than the equally naff Zip format, I'm not aware 
of anything else that is really widely supported. (Arguably the 7zip 
format is nicer - but who supports that? Er, yeah, 7zip. And nobody 
else.) Does anybody here know different?

I don't know for a fact, but I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing 
the program did was try to find "GZIP.EXE". :-P

Some fanboy yelled at me that you can't be a "real developer" if you 
don't have tools that support Tar. Of course, my problem is not the lack 
of such tools - I have 7zip, which handles Tar just fine. My problem is 
that I don't have a program named "TAR.EXE" which accepts the same CLI 
options as GNU Tar.

Then another fanboy yelled at me that it's "easy" to find a Win32 port 
of Tar. Sure, it's so "easy" in fact that I wasted an entire afternoon 
trying to do this and ultimately failed.

Specifically, I found a TAR.EXE, but it instantly crashes because it 
can't find "cygwin.dll". And, almost unbelievably, I can't find anywhere 
on the face of the Internet where I can download this file - including 
the Cygwin website!

So the guy yelled at me "well why don't you have Cygwin installed 
already?" Er, hello? Why should I have to set up an entire Unix 
emulation environment just to develop Haskell programs? Haskell is 
supposed to be portable, remember? Suffice it to say the guy didn't 
think I could be a "real developer" if I don't have Cygwin installed.

Still, that's nothing. The "standard package layout guide" recommends 
that your package's test suite should be named "runtests.sh". As in, a 
Unix shell script. Well *that* should be nice and portable, eh?

These problems are not exactly unsolvable. For example, there is a 
program called Darcs. It's a revision control system written in Haskell. 
It stores change sets in GZipped files. But it doesn't require you to 
install GZip to run it. It's statically linked against the GZip library. 
In other words, you put DARCS.EXE in your search path, and it just 
*works*. Why is Haskell's packager not like this? (I hypothisize that 
the answer is: Because nobody ever tests Haskell code on Windoze!)

Talking about all this on the IRC channel, somebody eventually pointed 
out that there's an add-on extra that automates some parts of building 
and using Haskell packages. And that it *can* build package files on 
Windoze without requiring any external tools. But this is a new, 
experimental, add-on. You have to find and install it yourself, 
manually. (Whereas the Haskell packaging system is a standard part of 
the development environment.)

Immature software, anyone?

Anyway, I'm ranting now...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:489ab8e3$1@news.povray.org...
> As in, the Tape ARchiver.
>
> I was experimenting with Haskell's packaging system yesterday, when I
> discovered that when you ask it to build a package file, it actually
> expects to find an executable called "TAR.EXE" in the current search
> path. Obviously, no such thing exists. This is Windoze, not Unix.

> Then another fanboy yelled at me that it's "easy" to find a Win32 port
> of Tar. Sure, it's so "easy" in fact that I wasted an entire afternoon
> trying to do this and ultimately failed.

??? The following link took about 10 sec to find.
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gtar.htm

I'll admit, I haven't tried to download and run it.

> Specifically, I found a TAR.EXE, but it instantly crashes because it
> can't find "cygwin.dll". And, almost unbelievably, I can't find anywhere
> on the face of the Internet where I can download this file - including
> the Cygwin website!

Maybe here?
http://www.nodevice.com/dll/cygwin_dll/item4683.html

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Gail Shaw wrote:

>> Then another fanboy yelled at me that it's "easy" to find a Win32 port
>> of Tar. Sure, it's so "easy" in fact that I wasted an entire afternoon
>> trying to do this and ultimately failed.
> 
> ??? The following link took about 10 sec to find.
> http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gtar.htm
> 
> I'll admit, I haven't tried to download and run it.

Yeah, I found a program in about 10 seconds too. I just couldn't get it 
to *run*...

>> Specifically, I found a TAR.EXE, but it instantly crashes because it
>> can't find "cygwin.dll". And, almost unbelievably, I can't find anywhere
>> on the face of the Internet where I can download this file - including
>> the Cygwin website!
> 
> Maybe here?
> http://www.nodevice.com/dll/cygwin_dll/item4683.html

After going through about three pages of adverts with a "click here to 
start your download" burried within them, I gave up.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:489ae266$1@news.povray.org...
> >
> > Maybe here?
> > http://www.nodevice.com/dll/cygwin_dll/item4683.html
>
> After going through about three pages of adverts with a "click here to
> start your download" burried within them, I gave up.
>

About half way down that page there's a captcha box and a download button.
Here's your dll.

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Attachments:
Download '1.0.0.0__cygwin.zip' (367 KB)

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Personally, I thought Tar was completely obsolete now?

  Why would it be obsolete? What would you suggest as an alternative?
It's still widely used in the unix world.

> Specifically, I found a TAR.EXE, but it instantly crashes because it 
> can't find "cygwin.dll". And, almost unbelievably, I can't find anywhere 
> on the face of the Internet where I can download this file - including 
> the Cygwin website!

  I really can't understand why precisely cygwin is used to port unix
programs to Windows. Cygwin binaries rely on a bunch of dlls nobody has.

  mingw, on the other hand, is a cross-compiler which creates native
Windows binaries (both command-line and GUI'd) which do not require any
dll which a basic standard Windows installation wouldn't have.

  (The "cross-compiler" part means that you can, for example, compile a
Windows binary directly from linux. You don't even need Windows to be
in your computer at all.)

  Yes, mingw does not have all the posix and unix libraries that cygwin
has, but a pretty wide range of applications can be compiled with it
directly. I have never tried, but I assume tar could well be one of those.
(OTOH file stats might present a problem if mingw doesn't support them.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> Personally, I thought Tar was completely obsolete now?
> 
>   Why would it be obsolete?

Because it was invented several decades before I was even born?

Oh, mind you, that same statement applies to Unix, and that's still with 
us...

> What would you suggest as an alternative?

Actually, if you stop and think about this, there aren't any really good 
alternatives that are actually widely supported.

>   I really can't understand why precisely cygwin is used to port unix
> programs to Windows. Cygwin binaries rely on a bunch of dlls nobody has.
> 
>   mingw, on the other hand, is a cross-compiler which creates native
> Windows binaries (both command-line and GUI'd) which do not require any
> dll which a basic standard Windows installation wouldn't have.

I have no idea.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> Personally, I thought Tar was completely obsolete now?
> > 
> >   Why would it be obsolete?

> Because it was invented several decades before I was even born?

  Computers were invented several decades before you were born. Are they
obsolete?

> > What would you suggest as an alternative?

> Actually, if you stop and think about this, there aren't any really good 
> alternatives that are actually widely supported.

  If I use an alternative, 7zip is good enough for me. Usually compresses
better than tar+bzip2 too.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

>>>   Why would it be obsolete?
> 
>> Because it was invented several decades before I was even born?
> 
>   Computers were invented several decades before you were born. Are they
> obsolete?

Nobody uses computers that were designed 40 years ago. They use 
computers that were designed maybe 3 years ago. Tar has been unchanged 
for a hell of a long time. That makes it either antiquated or 
increadibly well-designed, depending on how you look at it.

>>> What would you suggest as an alternative?
> 
>> Actually, if you stop and think about this, there aren't any really good 
>> alternatives that are actually widely supported.
> 
>   If I use an alternative, 7zip is good enough for me. Usually compresses
> better than tar+bzip2 too.

Likewise. However, 7zip is not (yet) nearly so widely available as 
PK-Zip or any of the Unix flavours of compressed Tar files.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp wrote:
>   Why would it be obsolete? 

Because it doesn't support all the new ACLs and other permission stuff.

> What would you suggest as an alternative?

star. :-)

Incidentally, the reason Zip is so widespread while lha, rar, etc are 
not, is the source for zip was given away with the license that you 
could create derivative works ONLY on the condition that it would not 
create files other versions could not read. Hence, zip became an 
exchange format, while the rest were striving to add another 2% or 3% 
compression ratios.

> It's still widely used in the unix world.

Which just goes to show that nobody really uses all the new ACLs and 
other permission stuff.

>   I really can't understand why precisely cygwin is used to port unix
> programs to Windows. Cygwin binaries rely on a bunch of dlls nobody has.

Because cigwin also supplies a shell and sym links and stuff like that, 
and as long as that's what you want under Windows, you might as well 
compile stuff using it. I.e., people use cygwin not because they want to 
port unix programs to windows, but because they want unix on their 
windows and incidentally they're porting this program. And hey, "it 
works for me."


FWIW, the key term to search on seems to be "win32". A native port of 
GNU stuff always seems to have the phrase "win32" somewhere in the name. 
SourceForge tends to be a good place to pick up stuff like diff and tar 
and so on.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

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Invisible wrote:
>>>>   Why would it be obsolete?
>>
>>> Because it was invented several decades before I was even born?
>>
>>   Computers were invented several decades before you were born. Are they
>> obsolete?
> 
> Nobody uses computers that were designed 40 years ago. They use 
> computers that were designed maybe 3 years ago. Tar has been unchanged 
> for a hell of a long time. That makes it either antiquated or 
> increadibly well-designed, depending on how you look at it.
> 

How about incredibly well designed and tested like most *nix utilities

John

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On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:54:44 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   I really can't understand why precisely cygwin is used to port unix
> programs to Windows. Cygwin binaries rely on a bunch of dlls nobody has.

I've never had a problem running cygwin as long as you run the cygwin 
installer from cygwin.org.  That includes everything you need and even 
resolves the dependencies so you can select the tar & gzip executables 
only and it'll install what it needs.

What I don't understand is why people distribute an executable for cygwin 
without mentioning "you need cygwin to run this" and a link to the site.

Jim

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On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:11:09 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Nobody uses computers that were designed 40 years ago.

That's not entirely true...

http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue132/92_Space_shuttle_techno.php

I had looked for a more current example, but I did recall that the 
shuttle flight computers were based on core memory technologies that were 
decades old.

Your statement above is kinda like saying "nobody uses hydraulic systems 
in avionics any more - it's all fly-by-wire now", which is also untrue.

Jim

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Tar has been unchanged for a hell of a long time.

  Yeah. The latest version of GNU tar is from April 2008.

> That makes it either antiquated or 
> increadibly well-designed, depending on how you look at it.

  If it was not good enough, it would have surely been enhanced or changed
to something else.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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"Doctor John" <joh### [at] homecom> wrote in message
news:489b1cdf$1@news.povray.org...

> How about incredibly well designed and tested like most *nix utilities

I wouldn't say that. Like most *nix utils, tar has its idiosyncracies. It's
just that changes would break too many things.

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somebody wrote:
> I wouldn't say that. Like most *nix utils, tar has its idiosyncracies. 

Actually, it sucks pretty badly for manipulating actual tape archives, 
when you get right down to it.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>> That makes it either antiquated or 
>> increadibly well-designed, depending on how you look at it.
> 
>   If it was not good enough, it would have surely been enhanced or changed
> to something else.

"Good enough" isn't "incredibly well-designed". ;-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Personally, I thought Tar was completely obsolete now?

HUH? 99.999% of programming projects give their code in .tar.gz or .tar.bz2
archives.

> On the other hand, other than the equally naff Zip format, I'm not aware
> of anything else that is really widely supported. (Arguably the 7zip
> format is nicer - but who supports that? Er, yeah, 7zip. And nobody
> else.) Does anybody here know different?

7zip is better, but the only complete implementation is tied to Windows
features... (p7zip doesn't support PPMd compression, for example, only
LZMA).

> Then another fanboy yelled at me that it's "easy" to find a Win32 port
> of Tar. Sure, it's so "easy" in fact that I wasted an entire afternoon
> trying to do this and ultimately failed.

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gtar.htm

> Specifically, I found a TAR.EXE, but it instantly crashes because it
> can't find "cygwin.dll". And, almost unbelievably, I can't find anywhere
> on the face of the Internet where I can download this file - including
> the Cygwin website!

cygwin.dll? That must be an ancient program. cygwin1.dll is what all cygwin
programs use now.

As for getting the dll... you download setup.exe, which is a package manager
on its own. The default options should come with tar already, otherwise
select it from the huge package list. You'll get a full bash shell in a
window :)

> So the guy yelled at me "well why don't you have Cygwin installed
> already?" Er, hello? Why should I have to set up an entire Unix
> emulation environment just to develop Haskell programs? Haskell is
> supposed to be portable, remember? Suffice it to say the guy didn't
> think I could be a "real developer" if I don't have Cygwin installed.

OK that gets immature from his part :)

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote
> somebody wrote:

> > I wouldn't say that. Like most *nix utils, tar has its idiosyncracies.

> Actually, it sucks pretty badly for manipulating actual tape archives,
> when you get right down to it.

The problem in academia/*nix world is a bit of idol worship and inertia. I
had to use TEX/LATEX again the other day. Great concept for its day (and
even for today) and it still works of course, but what a mess and PITA. It
needs a major rewrite to bring it into the 21st century. Being not buggy and
predictable (for those with an intimate knowledge of its inner workings, at
least) is not the same as being "incredibly well designed" - especially
after 5-10 years in the software business.

Post a reply to this message

somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote
> > somebody wrote:

> > > I wouldn't say that. Like most *nix utils, tar has its idiosyncracies.

> > Actually, it sucks pretty badly for manipulating actual tape archives,
> > when you get right down to it.

  The tar *program* maybe, but manipulating the tar *format* is just a
question of selecting the program you like. I'm sure there are many
advanced and GUI'ed programs which can handle tar (and other) formats
in multitude of ways.

> The problem in academia/*nix world is a bit of idol worship and inertia. I
> had to use TEX/LATEX again the other day. Great concept for its day (and
> even for today) and it still works of course, but what a mess and PITA. It
> needs a major rewrite to bring it into the 21st century. Being not buggy and
> predictable (for those with an intimate knowledge of its inner workings, at
> least) is not the same as being "incredibly well designed" - especially
> after 5-10 years in the software business.

  One advantage of LaTeX over most other text editing software is that its
input is ascii text. This makes it relatively easy to write programs which
generate LaTeX files and then let LaTeX handle the nice formatting.

  Of course not many appreciate this, not even many programmers who are
tasked to create a program which produces visually-pleasing documents.
One of the easiest way of doing this is, by far, make the program output
a proper LaTeX file, rather than trying to use some obscure library or,
heaven forbid, try to create the PDF/PS itself (which is really *not* worth
the programming trouble).

  Could the LaTeX input format be improved? Sure. However, it has worked
for a couple of decades, and usually the principle is "if it works, don't
fix it".

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:48:22 -0600, somebody wrote:

> The problem in academia/*nix world is a bit of idol worship and inertia

s/academia\/\*nix/the Windows/

Statement is still true....Everyone has fanboys....

Jim

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Warp wrote:
>>> Actually, it sucks pretty badly for manipulating actual tape archives,
>>> when you get right down to it.
> 
>   The tar *program* maybe, but manipulating the tar *format* is just a
> question of selecting the program you like. 

I was speaking of actual tape archives on actual tapes. Not files 
pretending to be tapes, but you know, those long skinny things wound 
around spools. :-)  I am not sure how a pretty GUI on the front might or 
might not help that. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>>>> Actually, it sucks pretty badly for manipulating actual tape archives,
>>>> when you get right down to it.
>>
>>   The tar *program* maybe, but manipulating the tar *format* is just a
>> question of selecting the program you like. 
> 
> I was speaking of actual tape archives on actual tapes.

Actually, the format is pretty sucky for tape archives too.

There's no central directory of files in the archive, so you have to 
read the entire tape to determine what's on it.

There's no archive-level metadata, so you can't tell when the tape was 
created, or why, or how many tapes are in the set, or what parameters 
might be needed to extract it (see the "B" option, for example).

There metadata is fixed-format, which means it's incompatible with newer 
versions of the format, because there isn't even a place to record what 
version of the metadata is there.

The metadata is very single-machine specific, so (for example) you can't 
restore the tape to a different machine with a different username->uid 
mapping and expect it to work. Indeed, you can't even tell what the 
uid's represent by inspection so you can't even write a program to 
demangle it when it's done.

The data is all stored in block sizes, wasting a lot of space in spite 
of the fact that tar cannot update the middle of an archive nor does the 
tar program seek the file even if it's on disk. This also causes one to 
have to read and write in block sizes, even tho the file is "supposed" 
to be an "array of bytes" kind of thing.

Just as a few nits... :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

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