Xar

The Leopard news of the moment is that Xar will be baked in. Xar, or eXtensible ARchive format, is just what it sounds like, a new way to compress files. You're thinking, 'Aren't there lots of ways to do this already?' Yes, but as this page entitled 'Why xar is interesting' explains Xar has some big things going for it. Firstly, it keeps metadata (like file type, MP3 data, and the like) in a separate file so you can tell lots about a compressed file without having to uncompress it. It also compressed each file separately, so if you Xar a folder each file is compressed separately.

Xar is already available for download, if the more technical amongst you would like to take it for a spin.

Pretty neat.

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Source: http://macgeek.freeflux.net/blog/archive/2006/12/30/macos-x-…

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The Leopard news of the moment is that Xar will be baked in. Xar, or eXtensible ARchive format, is just what it sounds like, a new way to...

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Jeem

I doubt the page is entitled to anything. Hey, I'm titled to my opinion!

January 02 2007 at 4:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Steven

eh

disk space is cheap....I have close to 2 terabytes in my bedroom....if i actually want to compress stuff, i want block compression where all files are compressed together for maximum savings, more rar/7zip/targz, less zip

January 02 2007 at 1:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

wd's brain

@#8 Nimrod: Here, you can borrow my star. and Happy New Year!

January 01 2007 at 4:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Rich

Xar - pronounced Zar or Ex-ar ?

January 01 2007 at 3:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Edward C

I think Xar is more like a container format for all other stuff. It could use 7zip, or what ever compression method that is good for the file and allows you to view description of files stored in XML without extracting it.

All in all i think it is pretty neat stuff. Would be nice if Xar choose to officially support a few compression like gzip and 7zip :)

January 01 2007 at 10:19 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Vincent

Xar, an archive system for Mail.app?

January 01 2007 at 4:34 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris

PS: How lame am I for readin TUAW at midnight on NYE? Can I at least get a "pity" star for being so pathetic?

January 01 2007 at 12:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris

From a switchers standpoint, StuffIT may look like a godsend. I'm guessing this is the POV Erik is coming from.

Happy New Year!

January 01 2007 at 12:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

bsth

Erik, you are completely backwards. StuffIt is one of the most closed, proprietary formats in the world, and there is no reason for anyone to use it at all. Xar is like a beefed up Tar, and it's all completely open source -- nothing about it is proprietary. That's kind of impossible, proprietary and open source are antonyms. Leopard build 9A321 already includes the xar command line utility to work with them, and anyone can build the xar and libxar source on any Unix platform. I'm sure any important packaging software can and will be updated easily.

December 31 2006 at 11:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jimm

Gee Erik, your name links to the StuffIt commercial site. Could you be any more blatant in your hawking of the way-past-its-prime (truly) proprietary StuffIt technology?

Oh, you might want to look up the work "proprietary" before you use it again.

xar looks really promising to me. It's no wonder that you StuffIt folks are trying to put a negative spin on it already.

December 31 2006 at 11:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply