I have noticed that `zipinfo' now shows "defN" instead of "stor" as the compression method for empty files. Various tests with older and new versions of 7-Zip, FreeBSD's `zip' and an ancient version of WinZip showed that all these tools use "stor" as the compression method for empty files.
I haven't found any technical documentation or recommendation about this, and I don't think it's an error to use "defN" for empty (zero length) files. However, it may be more convenient for the unzipping algorithm and for overall compatibility(*) if empty files were added to zip archives using "stor" as the compression method (set iMethod=0, as for directories)? (*) For example, my ancient version of WinZip (15.5), after all calling itself "world's #1 compression software" with "industry-leading compression"(**), just ignores empty files with "drwxr-xr-x" instead of "-rw-r--r--", so other unzipping utilities may also deliberately choose to ignore something that claims to be compressed by "defN" but has 0 bytes of data? (**) I really loved this program, it worked great for me before I decided to switch to open source tools, and I didn't intend to speak ill of it. --Florian _______________________________________________ fossil-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fossil-scm.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fossil-users
