tar(1) versus unzip

[Skip Ford]

Pav Lucistnik wrote:
> Skip Ford pí¹e v st 14. 09. 2005 v 16:36 -0400:
> > Why do ports that need to unzip a file still depend on unzip?
> > 
> > I uninstalled unzip way back when bsdtar(1) was able to unzip but
> > several ports still try to install it even though the system's
> > native tar can unzip their files just fine, at least with the
> > zipped ports I use.
> > 
> > Looks like the magic to handle it can just go into a file in
> > ports/Mk with USE_ZIP, but my Makefile-writing skills aren't good
> > enough to do it.  I also don't know the version of FreeBSD that
> > first included bsdtar with zip as the native tar.
> > 
> > So, is there some reason unzip is still needed on all systems or
> > has no one with the knowledge had the time to fix it?
> 
> 1) Older FreeBSD revisions didn't have tar capable on unzipping, and no
> one updated the ports infrastructure since.
> 
> 2) Are you absolutely sure tar handle all obscurities that do happen in
> real world zip files?

No, I've done no testing at all, other than manually unzipping the
few zipped ports I use ever since tar(1) could unzip, and
unzipping the odd file here and there from usenet or email.
I wouldn't say I've encountered a lot of zipped files, but tar(1)
has worked for all of them.

> 3) Some ports pass custom flags to unzip command, there would blow up
> when replaced with tar, too.

It'd be possible to depend on the unzip port for older FreeBSD versions
and if there are custom flags, but I guess that's probably a lot
of work just to avoid a dependency on a small port.

Depending on it when there's no reason to depend on it just bugs
me though.

-- 
Skip