Compression format with Haiku attributes support

[un_spacyar]

Hi. Besides ZIP, there is other compression format that support BeOS/Haiku extended attributes?

Thank you!

[damoklas]

I think, extended attributes should be written in separate file automatically (or by option) by system when writing outside of BFS. For example: file_name.txt.attributes for file_name.txt. What you think?

[coolcoder613]

NO!
Absolutely not by default!
Maybe have a copy with attributes option in Tracker.
I HATE how macOS does that by default on USBs,
it means every time, before I unplug the USB,
I have to open a Terminal on the USB,
and run dot_clean to remove all the ._ and .DS_Store files.

[michel]

Yes, HPKG!

Though I have yet to hear of anyone using just to transport a few files, but I see no technical reason why it couldn’t be. Just open it with Expander rather than HaikuDepot. I’m not sure about the compression ratio, but at the very least it could be a TAR replacement.

Still, what is the problem you have with ZIP?

[un_spacyar]

@michel

Yes, HPKG

Hello. Sorry, but as far I know, HPKG are just Zip files.

@michel

Still, what is the problem you have with ZIP

I am facing issues when compress big number of files: ( #18763 (zip error: Out of memory (was adding files to zip file)) – Haiku (haiku-os.org))

Because of this, I am looking for alternatives to backup my data.

[michel]

@un_spacyar

Sorry, but as far I know, HPKG are just Zip files

I believe not. Try copying an HPKG to your Desktop and then unzipping it from Terminal

It’s been a while but I raised this issue once before, let me see if I can find it … got it!

What compression format is HPKG?

If I am on another OS and for some reason I need to take a quick look inside an HPKG, is it compressed with a standard format (zip, tgz, rar etc) or is it proprietary? Sometimes I get a query by email and it is a schlep to fire up my Haiku box when I might be able to just open up the HPKG and see what the problem is.

[un_spacyar]

Thanks for the information @michel

Anyways, I would prefer to stick to some more standard compression format. Nothing against HPKG of course, but I guess it was not designed for backup purposes.

[zuMi]

It seems that it is not possible to zip attributes larger than 64kb, I avoid this by attaching the file to a blank email, as Haiku’s Mail also attaches its attributes, so I could compress the resulting text file with any compressor (but it’s counterproductive: you can extract the file with its attributes only with Mail, once decompressed)

[nephele]

@un_spacyar

Hello. Sorry, but as far I know, HPKG are just Zip files.

They are not. They are a format optimized for random access with moderate compression so they can be mounted.

[ArDrakho]

If your partition contains that much data as my data partition (bfs), I use rsync to backup to my backup (bfs) disk. Or, I create a new partition image using dd command. Zip is okay since it has built attribute saving, works for collected file sets. I prefer 7zip since it has better compression and its ubiquitous these days when saving files for different platform, but it does not preserve the attributes as Zip.