Re: Package for creating/opening zip files

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> writes:

> However this requires external programs. I think the windows version
> expects pkunzip in the path. I am almost certain that info-zip (the
> free software zip) should be a drop in replacement, as info-zip is
> what is used in GNU/Linux.

It is functionally equivalent and compatible at the file format level,
but I'm not sure how drop-in it would be.  The command-line arguments
are different for pkzip/pkunzip versus pkzipc (the newer win32 console
version; this comes with pkzip/pkunzip compatibility apps that just
translate the command-line and call pkzipc to do the work, but that is
not installed by default, for reasons I don't understand).  I know
info-zip's command-line structure is substantially different also from
pkzip/pkunzip, but I'm not sure how similar info-zip's commandline may
be to that of pkzipc.  It is also notable that pkzipc and info-zip can
handle certain filenames (e.g., .emacs) that will cause pkzip/pkunzip
to skip the file.  (Also, _old_ versions of pkzip/pkunzip (pre-1996 or
so) do not support LFNs at all.)

It would be relatively easy to write a small app that takes
commandline arguments in the style of any of these tools, translates
them, and calls another of the tools to do the work.  For example, a
tool that emulates info-zip by calling pkzipc or pkzip would not be a
terribly difficult piece of glue to construct.  But I don't know
whether such a thing has been done (except, as I said, that pkzipc
comes (optionally) with such a frontend that emulates pkzip/pkunzip).

-- 
(defun switch-to-scratch () (interactive) "Switch to *scratch* buffer."
(switch-to-buffer (get-buffer-create "*scratch*")))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-t") 'switch-to-scratch)