Re: [Gnu-arch-users] baz format archives in tla

[Matthieu Moy]

Miles Bader wrote:
>  * Are there any real advantages to "baz format" archives?

There is no really big difference. The main one is that instead of 
having c/c--b/c--b--v/, you have only c--b--v/ in the directory 
structure, which reduces the probability to hid the max filename length 
(this is indeed a keypoint if your archive is hosted on a windows 
server, while you probably don't mind if your archive is on a unix server).

There's another subtle detail that I don't remember exactly about a file 
which was supposed to be here in tla's archive and which was not 
actually there.

>  * Are there any problems with such archives in current/slightly-old
>    versions of tla?

It has been in tla for quite some time now (IIRC, more than a year).

>  * Must a mirror have the same archive format as the source archive?
>    If I had a baz-format internal archive, could I mirror it to a
>    classic-tla-format mirror?
>
> [The reason I ask all this, is that I'm about to create a new archive,
> and I noticed the "--baz" option to tla make-archive...]

Indeed, when Tom introduced the baz archive format, he made it the 
default without noticing. I believe this is still the case.

Regarding speed, the baz archive format _could_ make some operations 
like browsing faster (you have one directory listing to do instead of a 
recursive one to do a full browse). But the code doesn't exploits this 
AFAIK. And the content of version is still the same, only their layout 
changed.

So, globally, the differences are minor, I suppose you just don't mind ...

--
Matthieu