[xwiki-dev] .xar Extension NOT Used Properly

Sat Feb 3 10:18:54 CET 2007

Hello Vincent,

To add to the alternatives you presented, you could even use proper
xar (http://code.google.com/p/xar/). It is actually a quite nice
archive format, and it does have support for metadata, checksums,
table of contents etc. On the other hand, it is not an established
archive format, and I don't think there is a Java implementation for
it, so the overhead of implementing this would be a lot more
substantial than using zip or jar.

Catalin

On 2/3/07, Vincent Massol <vincent at massol.net> wrote:
> Hi Jeremi,
>
> I'm +1 on my side but as you voted -1 we'll need to convince you to
> change your vote ;-) Let me give it a try below...
>
> On Feb 3, 2007, at 9:41 AM, jeremi joslin wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > -1
> >
> > I'm not for changing to jar. it's not a Java archive, it's an XWiki
> > Archive. I don't see the point to change. People will think it's
> > javacode.
>
> * JAR is an archive format. It can be used for lots of different
> things. There are even software that use JARs for their installation.
> * I really believe that in the future our applications will not be
> made only of XML files but will also contain other libraries (jar
> files) and java classes. For example imagine the IRC bot application.
> There are some xwiki pages but we also need the picoirc jar. We'll
> need to bundle all that together.
> * XWiki is a Java application so all users are familiar with the JAR
> format.
>
> Of course we can use the XAR format for that. XAR looks nice because
> there's XWiki inside but there's a cost of inventing a new archive
> format:
> * It needs to be described
> * There needs to be tools for it (or people need to rename it to
> zip...). BTW if it's a zip we might as well name it zip... The
> problem with Zip is that it does not support meta data information
> such as the jar format does. And we need these... And there are APIs
> to get these metadata so we don't have to reimplement all the code
> (as we've done for the package.xml file).
> * It makes it difficult for the build (this is the same argument as
> above with tools) as all the existing plugins do not understand the
> XAR format so we have to reinvent all the tools... This is why I had
> to implement the xar handler and the xar plugin in our repository. It
> would make it much easier if it were an existing format such as JAR.
>
> I think it would be much better to use an existing format (which we
> do except we're using Zip instead of JAR), already documented rather
> than invent a new one. There's no point in us hiding the underlying
> format we use by changing the extension. We might as well use that
> format's extension...
>
> > if you look at this page :
> > http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=XAR there is some other
> > software who are using this extension. So why XWiki can't use it?
>
> Some people have thrown nuclear bombs in the past. Is that a good
> reason for others to do it? Probably not.
>
> It's not because people are doing bad things that we have to follow
> them ;-)
>
> Thanks
> -Vincent
>
> > On 2/3/07, Catalin Hritcu <catalin.hritcu at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hello all,
> >>
> >> What would you think of using the JAR extension instead of (mis-)
> >> using XAR for XWiki applications, and using the JAR manifest for
> >> storing the information that is now stored in package.xml ? Any other
> >> way this can be fixed ?
> >>
> >> Already created a JIRA task about this
> >>
> >> http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-802
> >>
> >> but I would like to hear your opinions before spending the time to
> >> implement a change you might actually not want :)
> >>
> >> Catalin
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >> From: Vincent Massol <vincent at massol.net>
> >> Date: Feb 2, 2007 7:56 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [xwiki-dev] .xar Extension NOT Used Properly
> >> To: Catalin Hritcu <catalin.hritcu at gmail.com>
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi Catalin,
> >>
> >> I think it's best to discuss all this on the list.
> >>
> >> Also, I've provided some answer in JIRA.
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >> -Vincent
> >>
> >>
> >> On Feb 1, 2007, at 11:22 PM, Catalin Hritcu wrote:
> >>
> >> > Hi Vincent,
> >> >
> >> > I created a JIRA issue for this and assigned it to myself:
> >> > http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-802
> >> >
> >> > At the time I don't really know much about what needs to be
> >> changed to
> >> > make it happen, but I'll look into it. Suggestions welcome :)
> >> >
> >> >> I guess we could use a JAR format and use information in the
> >> manifest
> >> >> to describe the content of an archive
> >> >
> >> > Can you also be more precise about the information you want
> >> stored in
> >> > the manifest?
> >> > http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/jar/jar.html#JAR%
> >> 20Manifest
> >> > According to this it seems that a manifest can store many things.
> >> >
> >> > Regards,
> >> > Catalin
> >> >
> >> > On 1/31/07, Vincent Massol <vincent at massol.net> wrote:
> >> >> Hi Catalin,
> >> >>
> >> >> See my other email on this topic. Basically I think I agree with
> >> >> you but
> >> >> we're currently focusing on releasing XWiki 1.0 and fixing bugs.
> >> >> this is an
> >> >> improvement request that will have to wait for quite long unless
> >> >> someone
> >> >> contributes a patch for it (including patches for the
> >> >> documentation ;-)).
> >> >>
> >> >> Thanks
> >> >> -Vincent
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> On Jan 8, 2007, at 11:32 AM, Catalin Hritcu wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> The new way to import/export wiki pages is very useful. However, I
> >> >>  think that using the .xar extension for the zip(!) archive is
> >> highly
> >> >>  confusing. This because there is already a XAR(eXtensible
> >> ARchiver)
> >> >>  archiving utility which uses the .xar extension for quite a
> >> >> while. And
> >> >>  while now XAR is standalone, it will be quite probable used by
> >> the
> >> >>  MacOSX package system in the future. Then download your
> >> archive will
> >> >>  yield an error like this (safari automatically expands archives):
> >> >>
> >> >>  "Error opening xar archive: xwiki-1.0-beta-1.xar"
> >> >>
> >> >>  Links:
> >> >>  http://www.opendarwin.org/projects/xar/
> >> >>  http://www.nabble.com/xar-in-Mac-OS-X-t2081148.html
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> <messagefooter.txt>
> >> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >
> >
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> >
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