> It might be that as long as you provide exactly the same inputs
> compression is deterministic across all platforms (at least for a
> specific compressor, like gzip).
> Having the handle fixed at 160 bits also seems limiting. It ties the
> entire archive format into exactly one hash.
Agreed. I'd suggest to change things slightly:
file name: <hashtype>,<hash>,<length>
content: uncompressed binary data, prefixed by some ASCII meta-data.
Of course, you can compress those things as:
<hashtype>,<hash>,<length>.gz
Now maybe the reason why it's not done this way is the desire to be
able to read the ASCII meta-data without having to decompress anything.
I'm not sure how important this is, and whether or not it could be
circumvented by putting that meta-data in the file name, for example as
an extension:
<hashtype>,<hash>,<length>.mp3
Stefan
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