Pack

[fabiopesaju]

send news! we're looking forward to the sources

[O]

I am working on it right now. In the meantime, let me know if you have any thoughts, test results or issues.

[O]

Source of Pack has been released.
Check the first post for more info.
You can get the latest from here: https://pack.ac/releases/source/Source.pack (or from GitHub)

Here are some steps to follow:
To compile the code, here are the steps to follow:
- Get the latest FreePascal and Lazarus from https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org
- Get the standard library used for development from https://github.com/SCLOrganization
Using Lazarus:
- Open SCL packages SCL.lpk and SCLLibraries.lpk
- Open Pack packages PackPackage.lpk and PackDraft0Package.lpk
- Open Pack project CLIProject.lpi
- Build

I will be happy to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

[domasz]

Great but would be a bit greater to have source code not packed with pack

[O]

That would be funny

[Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno]

Hey O and Domasz,

Great but would be a bit greater to have source code not packed with pack

I completely agree with this. It's a bit of a catch 22 here. If you wanna look at the source, you first have to download an unsafe binary to unpack it.

I would really prefer a link to GitHub, GitLab, or heck, even your own server running GITea would be preferable.

After reading the 4 pages of messages, this has really peeked my interest, but this distribution of the sources with a format that we can only unarchive with an unsecure binary... NOPE!!

Hope you put the code in a publicly accessible GIT repository.

Cheers,
Gus

[O]

Thank you for your comments.
The source is released on GitHub too: https://github.com/PackOrganization/Pack

[AlexTP]

very interesting.
I like how FAST your compressor is. it is faster than TAR! very nice.
it looks like fake project - too fast (faster than TAR is strange).

   tar: 4.7s, 1.31 GB
   Pack: 1.3s, 194 MB

maybe you can create the homepage part. with info. how your compressor / decompressor are made. is what algo. what features. it can be nice part of homepage 'pack.ac'.

[domasz]

very interesting.
I like how FAST your compressor is. it is faster than TAR! very nice.
it looks like fake project - too fast (faster than TAR is strange).

   tar: 4.7s, 1.31 GB
   Pack: 1.3s, 194 MB

maybe you can create the homepage part. with info. how your compressor / decompressor are made. is what algo. what features. it can be nice part of homepage 'pack.ac'.

Being faster than TAR or copy is totally doable. If a compressor can compress data more than TAR/copy then it has less data to write to disk.

[AlexTP]

@domasz
ah, yes, you are right. so it is good project.

[O]

@AlexTP, Thank you very much for the nice words. CudaText made my life easier—the same goal I had with Pack. That makes hearing your words more special. I will update the website too.
@domasz, You are right to a point, but the reason Pack is faster is not mainly because of smaller write size.
You need to read many files, compress them (while keeping random access on, something tar/tar.gz does not offer, and it is a great point to consider) and write them in a faster time.
But to demonstrate the speed for you, I disabled Press and ran the Linux test again:

   tar: 4.7 s, 1.31 GB
   Pack (with no Press): 1.8 s, 1.25 GB

Still, more than 2.5X faster, and still gives a smaller result!
Pack does not offer the No Press option as there was no point for it, it can become `even` faster with Press and save smaller data on the disc.

Please test more and comment with your thoughts.

[AlexTP]

website has
'Download Pack for Linux ↓'
but let's write about bitness of OS, for Windows and for Linux.
also Linux has variant 'Void linux with musl' which has different binaries support (CudaText for Ubuntu cannot be run on Void Linux with musl).

[Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno]

Hey O,

Thank you for your comments.

You're more than welcome!!

The source is released on GitHub too: https://github.com/PackOrganization/Pack

Now, this is something I can get into !!!
Thanks O, this is fab!!

Cheers,
Gus

[O]

You are welcome Gus.

[O]

Pack version 2 has been released.

You can get the latest CLI client from here: https://pack.ac/
Windows: https://pack.ac/releases/windows/pack.exe
Linux: https://pack.ac/releases/linux/pack
Source: https://pack.ac/releases/source/Source.pack (or from GitHub)

New
- List: Use `--list` to explore a Pack file, and it will print a list of all files.
- Partial Unpack: To unpack a specific file or folder in a Pack file, use `--include`.
- Pro notes:
  - To list an specific folder, you can use `--include` together with `--list`.
  - You can use multiple `--include` to unpack or list in one go. It will use an optimized algorithm to process each item just once.
  - The '--include' command also accepts an item's ID. Get ID from `--list`.

Improved
- Pack is now even faster, at near 5% in Pack and Unpack.
- A bug that caused invalid files in some systems, is now fixed.
- Handling of invalid and duplicate file names in export has improved significantly.
- Many minor changes to improve the readability of the code.

Examples of new features:

Get a list of all items:

Code: [Select]

pack -i ./test.pack --list
Unpack a file inside a Pack file:

Code: [Select]

pack -i ./test.pack --include=/a/file.txt
Use and ID instead of path for include:

Code: [Select]

pack -i ./test.pack --include=5
Unpack multiple files and folders:

Code: [Select]

pack -i ./test.pack --include=/a/file.txt --include=/a/folder/