Lots of heat, little light. (was: Unnecessary tar-compress-uuencodes)
greg yachuk
greggy at infmx.UUCP
Thu Jul 12 08:43:47 AEST 1990
In article <1990Jul11.072612.10374 at zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian at zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>
>Note also, whether compress-uuencode-compress saves or wastes bytes is
>entirely dependent on the original data. Rich $alz and I went around
>about this one three years ago, and that is the only conclusion that
>can be drawn; the argument is not worth rehashing in 1990.
This general statement is surely true, but we are discussing alt.sources
which contains mostly source (readable text) files. I'm including a
(rather long) listing of the results of the two packing techniques. The
sources are a sampling of those that I've saved off the net, mostly from
alt.sources and comp.sources.misc. I haven't done any pre-selection or
editting in order to present the numbers which I prefer. They are simply
the sources which I have never moved down to my PC.
For each kit presented, the third and fourth lines are the important ones.
The third line gives the size of the kit on disk when it reaches the user's
system. The forth line gives the size of the file which must be transmitted
between systems. (I'm assuming normal old 'compress' is used for this.)
As can be seen, there is small variation between the TCU [*] size and the
shar size (third line). Sometimes the TCU is larger and sometime the
shar is larger. They usually weigh in within a K byte or two of each
other. If site-to-site transmission does not include automatic compression,
there is little difference between the two.
The fourth line is much more interesting. The shar's get compressed to
approximately half the size of the TCU's. This means as much as twice the
communications costs for shipping TCU's as for shipping shar's.
[*] Tar-Compress-Uuencode
Some notes are in order:
1) A couple of the sizes for Shar's are missing. This happens when the
shar process burps or cannot handle the input files. Most likely
cause is that a file is too large to fit into a shar, and I don't
have a shar-maker which splits automatically.
2) I'm using Rich Salz' shar and makekit utilities. Thanks Rich.
3) In order to avoid problem 1, I'm using a shar size of 100k. I know
that this isn't normally a useful thing, since many mailers would
puke on them. Normal sized shar's would have a slightly higher
total size, since the overhead stuff would have to be repeated more
times. This is probably negligable for the purposes of this
experiment, however.
>
>Kent, the man from xanth.
Greg Yachuk Informix Software Inc., Menlo Park, CA 92025
greggy at informix.com | {uunet,pyramid}!infmx!greggy (415) 926-6300
--- no pithy comments ---
abe tar: 131072
tar.Z: 54204
tar.Z.uue: 128912 shar: 124207
tar.Z.uue.Z: 121967 shar.Z: 56693
===========================================================
amoeba tar: 294912
tar.Z: 109929
tar.Z.uue: 261416 shar: 280932
tar.Z.uue.Z: 247643 shar.Z: 119618
===========================================================
atty tar: 221184
tar.Z: 87353
tar.Z.uue: 207736 shar: 219818
tar.Z.uue.Z: 196662 shar.Z: 94337
===========================================================
btoa tar: 57344
tar.Z: 20383
tar.Z.uue: 48496 shar: 49063
tar.Z.uue.Z: 46160 shar.Z: 20252
===========================================================
cgrind tar: 16384
tar.Z: 6557
tar.Z.uue: 15622 shar: 12034
tar.Z.uue.Z: 15504 shar.Z: 6346
===========================================================
chmod tar: 24576
tar.Z: 11227
tar.Z.uue: 26727 shar: 18203
tar.Z.uue.Z: 25944 shar.Z: 9765
===========================================================
combine tar: 172032
tar.Z: 65119
tar.Z.uue: 154873 shar: 170195
tar.Z.uue.Z: 146846 shar.Z: 71853
===========================================================
crisp tar: 1597440
tar.Z: 591569
tar.Z.uue: 1406649 shar:
tar.Z.uue.Z: 1328614 shar.Z:
===========================================================
cshar3b tar: 270336
tar.Z: 102321
tar.Z.uue: 243327 shar: 256169
tar.Z.uue.Z: 230032 shar.Z: 113242
===========================================================
cvs tar: 376832
tar.Z: 146125
tar.Z.uue: 347483 shar: 365439
tar.Z.uue.Z: 328316 shar.Z: 156979
===========================================================
dynlib tar: 49152
tar.Z: 16052
tar.Z.uue: 38199 shar: 35991
tar.Z.uue.Z: 36691 shar.Z: 15226
===========================================================
ed tar: 49152
tar.Z: 22053
tar.Z.uue: 52464 shar: 43367
tar.Z.uue.Z: 49814 shar.Z: 20711
===========================================================
eiffel tar: 32768
tar.Z: 10668
tar.Z.uue: 25397 shar: 25894
tar.Z.uue.Z: 24718 shar.Z: 10558
===========================================================
faces tar: 368640
tar.Z: 126525
tar.Z.uue: 300877 shar: 353624
tar.Z.uue.Z: 284610 shar.Z: 140095
===========================================================
flex2b tar: 311296
tar.Z: 120043
tar.Z.uue: 285468 shar: 313541
tar.Z.uue.Z: 270516 shar.Z: 133655
===========================================================
fmt tar: 8192
tar.Z: 1325
tar.Z.uue: 3179 shar: 4216
tar.Z.uue.Z: 3179 shar.Z: 2425
===========================================================
freegram tar: 221184
tar.Z: 78273
tar.Z.uue: 186148 shar: 225552
tar.Z.uue.Z: 176236 shar.Z: 85148
===========================================================
gawk211 tar: 835584
tar.Z: 347847
tar.Z.uue: 827133 shar: 847162
tar.Z.uue.Z: 780479 shar.Z: 372921
===========================================================
getopt tar: 49152
tar.Z: 20114
tar.Z.uue: 47857 shar: 41980
tar.Z.uue.Z: 45529 shar.Z: 20063
===========================================================
head tar: 8192
tar.Z: 1343
tar.Z.uue: 3222 shar: 4507
tar.Z.uue.Z: 3222 shar.Z: 2473
===========================================================
ilib tar: 548864
tar.Z: 191079
tar.Z.uue: 454372 shar: 502861
tar.Z.uue.Z: 429894 shar.Z: 207734
===========================================================
le tar: 32768
tar.Z: 12652
tar.Z.uue: 30113 shar: 29332
tar.Z.uue.Z: 29112 shar.Z: 13072
===========================================================
menu tar: 483328
tar.Z: 178257
tar.Z.uue: 423884 shar: 466489
tar.Z.uue.Z: 400528 shar.Z: 200122
===========================================================
mmv tar: 90112
tar.Z: 38720
tar.Z.uue: 92096 shar: 87030
tar.Z.uue.Z: 87106 shar.Z: 38780
===========================================================
multitee tar: 32768
tar.Z: 13240
tar.Z.uue: 31517 shar: 25752
tar.Z.uue.Z: 30437 shar.Z: 12622
===========================================================
mz tar: 57344
tar.Z: 20740
tar.Z.uue: 49343 shar: 49971
tar.Z.uue.Z: 46939 shar.Z: 20560
===========================================================
nroff tar: 147456
tar.Z: 56068
tar.Z.uue: 133348 shar: 146268
tar.Z.uue.Z: 126227 shar.Z: 61393
===========================================================
pcmail tar: 696320
tar.Z: 265607
tar.Z.uue: 631586 shar: 675083
tar.Z.uue.Z: 595848 shar.Z: 296326
===========================================================
perl tar: 1212416
tar.Z: 468325
tar.Z.uue: 1113604 shar: 1191568
tar.Z.uue.Z: 1050659 shar.Z: 504233
===========================================================
rcs tar: 1089536
tar.Z: 425666
tar.Z.uue: 1012168 shar: 1100833
tar.Z.uue.Z: 954597 shar.Z: 476641
===========================================================
rn tar: 630784
tar.Z: 250719
tar.Z.uue: 596180 shar: 617464
tar.Z.uue.Z: 562641 shar.Z: 272664
===========================================================
ro tar: 163840
tar.Z: 60961
tar.Z.uue: 144980 shar: 158113
tar.Z.uue.Z: 137318 shar.Z: 66229
===========================================================
sh tar: 475136
tar.Z: 192792
tar.Z.uue: 458443 shar: 481751
tar.Z.uue.Z: 433311 shar.Z: 210913
===========================================================
sh07 tar: 458752
tar.Z: 185643
tar.Z.uue: 441446 shar: 464890
tar.Z.uue.Z: 417548 shar.Z: 203428
===========================================================
shape tar: 1630208
tar.Z: 574431
tar.Z.uue: 1365899 shar: 1630030
tar.Z.uue.Z: 1290386 shar.Z: 669724
===========================================================
simped tar: 81920
tar.Z: 28301
tar.Z.uue: 67324 shar: 72055
tar.Z.uue.Z: 63922 shar.Z: 28359
===========================================================
teleplay tar: 57344
tar.Z: 19139
tar.Z.uue: 45542 shar: 47882
tar.Z.uue.Z: 43448 shar.Z: 18458
===========================================================
tinfo tar: 237568
tar.Z: 88367
tar.Z.uue: 210147 shar: 224697
tar.Z.uue.Z: 198990 shar.Z: 96511
===========================================================
tooltool tar: 688128
tar.Z: 267789
tar.Z.uue: 636774 shar:
tar.Z.uue.Z: 601370 shar.Z:
===========================================================
vtree tar: 49152
tar.Z: 20135
tar.Z.uue: 47907 shar: 38718
tar.Z.uue.Z: 45606 shar.Z: 18609
===========================================================
which tar: 16384
tar.Z: 6570
tar.Z.uue: 15650 shar: 12900
tar.Z.uue.Z: 15521 shar.Z: 7072
===========================================================
xfig tar: 1097728
tar.Z: 349213
tar.Z.uue: 830382 shar: 1086200
tar.Z.uue.Z: 784855 shar.Z: 396620
===========================================================
xtail tar: 16384
tar.Z: 5563
tar.Z.uue: 13259 shar: 9325
tar.Z.uue.Z: 13253 shar.Z: 4972
===========================================================
xxencode tar: 16384
tar.Z: 6011
tar.Z.uue: 14326 shar: 14787
tar.Z.uue.Z: 14302 shar.Z: 6867
===========================================================
--
Greg Yachuk Informix Software Inc., Menlo Park, CA 92025
greggy at informix.com | {uunet,pyramid}!infmx!greggy (415) 926-6300
--- no pithy comments ---
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