At 05:48 11/12/2000 +0000, rvj wrote:
>Just out of interest (follow up to previous post of mine)
>
>
>1. I presume that the same mechanism that that is used to access the
>contents of a JAR via the packages/skins/locale rdf files can be used to
>access binary data/code ? Is this true currently or potentially?
Anything could be in a jar, jar is managed by a protocol and a service, but
the code using it would have to know how to use that service. A better
alternative altogether is a private file system, which jars sort of look
like but really aren't. They use a standard file container design (i.e. a
zip file), which makes the contents accessible to anything which
understands that structure ( which is a lot of stuff ). So the only way to
make it locally secure, as opposed to secure from remote changes, is to use
the platform's file permissions.
>2. If true, then apart from the main mozilla program (apprunner), can I
>presume that essentially all of the other standard system utilities and
>DLLs such as regxpcom, can be packaged as a single system JAR.
No, because the platform O/S loads junk like DLLs and libraries and not the
application. You could package everything that way and have an installer
expand it all, but you'd need at least zip file support to do that in the
installer.
>3. If true then presumably it may be possible for the components directory
>to contain one or more JARs containing one or more components?
Well, depends what you mean by component. If its a UI component then yes,
that's how they are now. If its a component that exists as a DLL, or its
installed with the DLLs (or the platform's equivalent to DLL), for instance
you can have a protocol handler written completely in js, that then would
need to be a separate file rather than in a jar.
On the other hand, do I think private file systems are a good idea? Yes I
do, other than problems of repairing them they do have a lot of
advantages. In order for system objects to be stored in them though the
file system needs to be mounted and known to the operating
system. Sometimes there is a win in doing that, flash file systems for
example, but its less of an advantage these days with better granulated
file systems.
Simon
Simon
