Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: patch-log sizes

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Tupshin Harper <address@hidden>

    > This reminds me of a question that I've been meaning to ask for some 
    > time. Is there a strong reason why it makes sense for arch to store 
    > files in compressed tars as opposed to storing compressed files in 
    > uncompressed tars? Specifically, the difference between a .tgz 
    > containing many .txt files vs a .tar containg many .txt.gz files. 
    > (Extensions used just to illustrate the fundamental nature of the files 
    > in question). Presumably compression ratios would be somewhat less, but 
    > accessing a limited subset of the files in the tar would be *much* 
cheaper.

    > Any thoughts? What am I missing?

Revision libraries are a better way to provide cheap access to
individual source file trees.

Remember that most revisions are stored as changesets so that the .tgz
is going to contain diffs, not individual source files.   Are you
really sure you want to optimize access to those diffs?

(I would guess, (but it is just a guess), that the compression ratios 
would be "much" less, not "somewhat" less.)

-t