xar packages
xar packages
- Subject: xar packages
- From: Karl Kuehn <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:54:27 -0800
Good afternoon!
I have been mulling over an idea to try and push Radmind towards
using a common package format with Apple's installer, in the hopes
that my workflow in creating images can be streamlined. This was
partially inspired some time ago when I read that the new .pkg flat
files used xar.
However my enthusiasm was somewhat dashed today when I took apart a
sample flat-file .pkg today and discovered that the format has not
seemingly used the xar format for anything truly useful. I was hoping
that it would use the xar system to store a series of files, and that
I could piggy-back on this hierarchy by adding more meta-data to get
the couple of other markers that Radmind needs (things like negative
transcripts and the like). But instead I have found that inside the
xar package are three files: a PackageInfo file, a BOM, and a gziped
cpio file.... so pretty much exactly what I would have found in the
folder version of a .pkg.
That is rather disappointing, and seems like a waste of a perfectly
good opportunity, and of the wonderfull facilities offered by xar. I
do understand that the .pkg system does need to also work for
"special" objects in the system (devices, etc) that cpio has been
extended to handle, but it is a real disappointment that this
requirement has hamstrung the adoption of xar as a really useful way
of improving the openness of the .pkg format.
Does anyone have and good news for me? Am I missing something? Or are
my visions of making Radmind overloads merge with .pkg's destined for
failure?
--
Karl Kuehn
email@hidden
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