Russian Developers
Releases In Affiliation
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Hi All.
We just update on Warp 4 FP6 Client our old ARJ (1998) by the new release 2.70
uploaded on Hobbes (arj2_270.exe,
238K) in the last day of the year 1999.
Here is a fine Russian release made for this new era that we recommend! To install
(or upgrade) ARJ simply pur the .exe file in a temporary directory and execute
it: if you have not another version installed in your machine the install creates
the directory ARJ/OS2 in the root as you can see in the photo below (upgrade):
ARJ/2 is functionally similar to ARJ/DOS. Now handles EAs and HPFS long filenames. It supports OS/2 long filenames, extended attributes as well as DTA/DTC timestamps. Full set of ARJ utilities is now bundled. As the OS/2 lacks a multifunctional compression utility, a version of ARJ for OS/2 has been developed by ARJ Software Russia. The aim of the porting was to retain the functionality and compatibility with ARJ for DOS ("ARJ/DOS" from this point onward) but several exceptions occur.
ARJ/2 has been developed by ARJ Software Russia with the most of original ARJ code left intact. It has been briefly tested on IBM OS/2 v 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5, and Microsoft Windows NT Workstation v 3.51 and 4.0. The file systems chosen for testing include FAT, HPFS, Ext2FS and NTFS.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
* OS/2 version 1.2
or higher, or Windows NT v 3.10 or higher.
For OS/2 systems:
* A 80286 or higher CPU.
* 576K of memory is needed for operation.
For Windows NT systems:
* 1024K of memory is needed for operation.
DIFFERENCES WITH THE DOS AND
WINDOWS NT VERSIONS OF ARJ
("-" indicates
a missing feature, "*" - a different operation and
"+" stands for a feature
unique to ARJ/2)
- There may be a
significant performance drawback (compared to
ARJ/DOS and versions of
ARJ/2 prior to 2.62.08) when accessing
files on volumes with
no write-back cache.
* External garble
modules are provided as OS/2 DLLs. You may not
use DOS modules
with ARJ/2, or vice versa. The encryption
algorithm is the
same, so ARJ/2 garbled archives can be
processed under DOS.
* ARJ/2 sets
the "Host OS" to "OS/2" on its archives.
When
extracting any such
archive with ARJ for DOS, some unusual
behavior may occur.
Versions of ARJ prior to 2.50 convert
high-ASCII characters
in filenames to 7-bit characters by
ignoring the high
bit. So, the filename "±TEST±" will
be
converted to "1TEST1"
on extraction. ARJ/DOS also strips high
bit from archive comments,
but only if the archive was created
by ARJ/2. Archives created
with ARJ/DOS and then processed
under OS/2 are not affected.
* ARJ/2 uses the
default OS/2 error handler that will normally
display pop-up menus
prompting for action. The -& option
installs batch error and
exception handler (new feature since
ARJ/2 v 2.62.08). Remember
that the ampersand character is
used in OS/2 to
start two processes consequently, so this
switch will actually split
the command line. Type -^& instead
of -& to install the
error handler.
* ARJSFX and ARJSFXJR
archives will display ANSI sequences if
the ANSI support is enabled
in the current OS/2 session (it's
enabled by default in
OS/2).
* By default, ARJ/2
stores extended attributes among with files.
To disable EA
storage and thus revert to the traditional
header format, use the
"-2e" option. See a special dedicated
section below for details
on EA handling.
* The -hm options
are compatible with their DOS implementation
hence a temporary
swap file is created if the file list
exceeds 3000 files. To
keep the entire list in memory, use
-hm65000.
+ The "-h#"
option has been improved to allow custom date/time
formats. A custom
format is specified by putting a format
sequence right after
the "-h#". The following characters
represent date/time macros:
Y
= year, M = month, D
= day
h = hour, m
= minute, s = second
N = day of year
(note that these are case-sensitive)
All
other characters, as well as those going beyond format
limits (4 digits for year,
2 digits for all other fields), are
treated as delimiters.
Examples:
ARJ
a project- -h#YYYYMMDD (project-19991022.arj)
ARJ a backup- -h#MM-DD_hh-mm-ss
(backup-10-22_23-57-16.arj)
ARJ a specs -h#YY (specs99.arj)
ARJ a logs_ -h#NNN (logs_295.arj)
ARJ a test -h#YYYYYYYY
(testYYYY1999.arj)
+ The new "-2d"
option will force the stamping of "MS-DOS" as
host operating system
for the archives created by ARJ/2. It
may be used for
compatibility, to avoid "binary file from
another OS" warnings.
"-2d1" will force only the main header
to be stamped as
MS-DOS one, so archive comments will not be
discarded by DOS version.
+ "-2p<n>"
can be used to set the priority of
ARJ/2. The
knowledge of OS/2
scheduling system is required to use this
option. It can dramatically
increase performance but slow down
other processes. The <n>
can be equal to 1, 2, 3 or 4:
1
= idle-time priority
2 = regular priority
3 = time-critical
priority
4 = fixed-high priority
Priority
delta values are not supported. We don't
see a
strong requirement for
them.
+ The "-2a"
option is implemented in ARJ/2 due to a popular
demand from FidoNet
system operators. Basically it acts like
"-jo", with
the exception that file names, and not the
extensions, are "serialized".
Consider having a file called
"FILE995N.TXT"
and an archive that contains the same file. If
extracted with the
"-2a" option, the file will be written
to "FILE9950.TXT",
if you extract it again, it'll be called
"FILE9951.TXT",
and so on up to "FILE9959.TXT",
then
"FILE9960.TXT".
And after "FILE9999.TXT" ARJ/2 will start with
"FIL00000.TXT".
This option allows you to extract one file to
100000000 unique names.
It's essential to system operators
since multiple mail packets
with the same name may come from
different systems.
NOTES:
1. It'll be
wise to include this option in the script that
unpacks
the ARCmail packets and NOT in ARJ_SW environment
variable.
This option is a security measure for systems
running
in unattended mode, and will only confuse you if
enabled
by default.
2. There's
a security hole: a file called "9999.XXX" or so,
will
not be overwritten. However, all subsequent writes
will
be redirected into file "0000.XXX". So, files with
9s
in the beginning have less chances of being preserved.
Hopefully
such situation is unlikely for FidoNet systems.
3. There is
another option, "-jo1", to serialize filenames,
however
its operation is different. The volume must
support long
filenames in order to use this option,
moreover,
it's not suitable for dealing with FidoNet
ARCmail.
+ ARJ/2 has no
shareware volume size limitation for ARJSFXV
archives, because the
self-extractor itself consumes a lot of
disk space.
+ ARJSFXJR does
not support long filenames under Win95 DOS.
ARJSFXJR in ARJ/2 supports
OS/2 long filenames.
+ With no ARJ_SW
specified, ARJ/2 looks for a file named ARJ.CFG
in its home directory.
If found, this file will be parsed and
used as a standard
ARJ configuration file (see manual for
details).
EXTENDED ATTRIBUTES HANDLING
Beginning with version
2.62.10, ARJ/2 can back up and restore
extended attributes (also referenced as
EAs) without needing any
external utilities. This is achieved by
compressing and storing
EAs as a part of file header.
Restrictions on EA support:
* The multivolume
restart feature (-jn) will not work if EAs are
enabled. You'll have
to disable EAs with -2d prior to using
-jn, or to recreate the
archive if the EAs are precious.
* Hollow mode archives do not support EAs.
A set of new options has
been introduced to let the user control
EA handling:
* "-2c"
restricts EA handling to critical EAs only. Archived
non-critical EAs
will not be restored. When an archive is
created, only critical
EAs will be saved.
* "-2e"
specifies EA inclusion filter. With no parameters given,
it disables EA handling
at all. Otherwise, an expression that
follows it is
interpreted as a wildcard that limits EA
inclusion to a particular
EAs. Multiple options can be entered
to represent a set of
EA names but list files are not allowed.
Examples:
ARJ a test
In this example, all EAs will be preserved.
ARJ
a no_eas -2e
ARJ x no_eas -2e
EAs will neither be packed nor restored.
ARJ a documents -2e.LONGNAME
In this case, only .LONGNAME EAs will be handled.
ARJ a test -2e.CLASSINFO -2e.ICON*
.CLASSINFO and .ICON* (i.e. .ICON, .ICON1, .ICONPOS) EAs will be packed and restored.
It's
wise to specify "-2e.*" when backing up your OS/2 desktop
or configuration
files. The system EAs start with dot (".")
while application EAs
start with application name.
* "-2x"
specifies an exclusion filter. It must be followed by an
exclusion EA name specification.
The rules are the same as
with "-2e".
Also, the two options may work together, providing
both an inclusion and
an exclusion rule. For example:
ARJ a backup_ -r -p1 -h#2 -2e.* -2x.FED* c:\projects
may
be used to create regular back-ups of your work directory,
including all system EAs
but excluding EAs created with FED
(Fast Editor Lite, an
editor written by Sergey I. Yevtushenko,
evsi@naverex.kiev.ua)
- that program does not follow
traditional EA naming
conventions and uses system-alike EAs
for anchor position marks.
Extended attributes are
also supported in ARJSFXV self-extractors
where they are stored using the same technology
as with usual ARJ
archives.
The presence of EAs is
indicated by a "(EA: ...)" message when a
file is packed. Note that this size may
differ from the one given
when the file is unpacked - the former is
the EA structure size
and the latter is the space allocated for
EA storage. The number
of EAs and the size of EA structure is
also displayed when the
archive is listed with "ARJ v"
command.
KNOWN PROBLEMS
* On FAT volumes
under Windows NT, both long filenames and short
filenames may be used.
If you refer to a long filename with a
short filename (for example,
type "ARJ a lntest LONGFI~1.TXT),
the short filename will
be stored as entered from console. So,
no LFN equivalent is placed
into the archive, and if a file
with a similar long
filename exists in the archive, it will
not be replaced.
* REARJ/2 may behave
incorrectly if the command interpreter
(specified with
COMSPEC= environment variable) is not
compatible with CMD.EXE.
It's also unwise to rename REARJ.EXE
since it calls
itself recursively when converting archives
within archives (/a).
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: Third-party applications
fail to handle ARJ/2 archives!
A: Try to disable extended attributes
(-2e) and HPFS DTA/DTC
storage (-j$). Many applications
are incapable of handling new
archive format (although
this format is fully compliant with
documented guidelines).
Known examples of such applications
include File Commander
v 2.11, Norton Commander v 5.00 and
WinRAR v 2.60.
Q: Extended attribute
sizes reported by InfoZIP and ARJ/2 are
different. What's the
cause?
A: As we have stated earlier,
ARJ/2 reports the size of its
internal EA storage
structure as EA size when packing files.
This may mismatch with
space allocated for EAs by the system,
and it may also
mismatch with values reported by other OS/2
native archivers.
Q: How can I back up my
Workplace Shell folders, preserving the
icons?
A: Since folders are represented with directories,
you'll have to
enable directory storage
with -a1 or -hbfd.
Q: Why ARJ/2 is a 16-bit
executable?
A: There are several reasons for it. First,
the Huffman encoding
and decoding routines
are optimized by introducing assembler
code. That's why
ARJ 2.x is many times faster than ARJ 1.x,
and ARJ32 is quite slow
compared to ARJ/2. Second, OS/2 16-bit
binaries do NOT run
in VDMs and are actually as fast and
reliable as 32-bit ones.
So-called 16->32 thunks are called
when OS/2 API is accessed
but it rarely happens: ARJ/2 does
Huffman encoding/decoding
most of the time, not involving any
kind of external API.
An "ARJ32 for OS/2" version was planned
but we decided to stay
with 16-bit code, adding ARJ32-specific
features.
Q: What is ARJLX?
A: It's the same program
as ARJ/2, compressed with LXLITE
utility. It requires OS/2
v 3.0 or higher to run. You may
encounter some compatibility
problems with it (it's unable to
register ARJLX with REGISTER.EXE,
and so on...)
Q: The EAs have
vanished after I used ARJ/DOS to update an
archive.
A: Current versions of ARJ/DOS and
ARJ32, as well as ARJ/2 prior
to 2.62.10, strip
the extended headers when any kind of
archive update occurs.
Q: I want to create
single-volume self-extracting archive that
supports EAs but ARJ/2
uses ARJSFX instead of ARJSFXV.
A: You need to force use of ARJSFXV/2.
The best way for it is to
specify an arbitrary large
value for volume size, e.g. -va.
Q: How can I create an
installer for my OS/2 product with ARJ?
A: ARJSFX/2 is able to run OS/2 commands
after unpacking archive.
Try this: create a script
you want to to be invoked after the
installation completes.
e.g.,
INSTALL2.CMD:
=======
/* REXX */
if
RxFuncQuery('SysLoadFuncs') then do
call RxFuncAdd
'SysLoadFuncs', 'RexxUtil', 'SysLoadFuncs'
call SysLoadFuncs
end
say
"Installation has completed, creating desktop object..."
call SysCreateObject
....
========
and so on...
Now
create an archive comment with the first line as follows:
)) \InstallDir\ -b -x
-y -!INSTALL2.CMD
Call it, for example, CMT.ANS. Now create an ARJSFX archive:
ARJ a PACKAGE.EXE -je -r -a -jm -zCMT.ANS -xCMT.ANS
You'll
make a self-extracting archive with an automatically
invoked installation program.
You may not commercially distribute these packages.
Q: How can I distinguish
ARJ/2 archives from ARJ or ARJZ ones?
A: Use the ARJ V command. The "Host
OS" field contains the type
of archiver binding (DOS
or OS/2). The "Revision" field may be
used to determine the
archiver version that added the file:
1
= ARJ versions earlier than 0.14,
ARJZ
compatibility mode (-md is less than 26624)
2
= ARJ v 0.14...0.20
3
= ARJ v 1.00...2.22
4
= ARJ v 2.30, X1
5
= ARJ v 2.39a, 2.39b
6
= ARJ v 2.39c...2.41
7
= ARJ v 2.42a...2.50a
8
= ARJ v 2.55...2.61, ARJ/2 v 2.61
9
= ARJ v 2.62, ARJ/2 v 2.62, ARJ32 v 3.00
10
= ARJ v 2.70, ARJ/2 v 2.62.10 and higher
50
= ARJZ with maximum distance up to 32K
51
= ARJZ with maximum distance up to 64K
100
= ARJ32 v 3.00b...3.01
101
= ARJ32 v 3.02 and higher
Note:
ARJ versions that created the Revision 1 header used a
different method 4 compression.
Support for it was dropped in
versions 1.xx. Such archives
may be incorrectly processed by
ARJ/2.
INFORMATION FOR DEVELOPERS
ARJ/2 header format is
100% compatible with ARJ header format but
ARJ/2 was the first to make use of extended
header fields. Here's
a brief summary of the EA storage technology.
First, the extended
header layout is as follows (all values
are little-endian):
Bytes Description
----------------------
1 Extended
header ID (0x45, the character 'E'). Indicates
a
EA information header. This is only valid if the arj_nbr
(header
revision number) is 10 or greater.
1 Continuation
flag. If set to 0, marks the end of block
chain
so the EA data can be concatenated and unpacked.
Also
it provides a way of checking for trashed EA blocks.
? Packed EA
block.
A standard CRC32
of the whole header, including the ID but
excluding header size field, is appended
to it. It is strongly
recommended that the CRC is
verified when any compressed EA
processing occurs.
The packed EA block is
a complex structure that can span over
multiple volumes. In case of such
spanning, separate parts of
the block are stored in separate
extended headers on different
volumes and they must be joined together
when the last block is
read (it's recognized by EXTFILE_FLAG being
clear). The layout of
the packed block follows:
Bytes Description
----------------------
1 Compression
method (0...4, may differ from the one found
in
the file header)
2 Unpacked
EA data size in bytes
4 CRC32 of
unpacked EA data
? Raw packed
EA data
The raw packed data may
be decompressed using the original ARJ
algorithms. In the case when the file is
encrypted, the packed
block is also encrypted (but the garble
routine is reinitialized
when compression of the
EA occurs). The password modifier is
the same as for the first file section.
After decompression, the
following EA structure will exist:
Bytes Description
-----------------------
2 Total number
of EAs
1 fEA byte
(may indicate a critical EA)
1 Size of
extended attribute name
2 Size of
extended attribute value
? Extended
attribute name (not ASCIIZ)
? Extended
attribute value (binary data)
Even if the file is a
text one, the EAs must be handled as binary
data during compression and extraction.
When EAs are spanned over
multiple volumes, neither the packed block
header is repeated nor
the compression is restarted (actually,
the whole block including
its header is created in memory and later
split to volumes).
THE ARJ/2 TEAM
ARJ Software, Inc.
Programmed by Andrew Belov
Testing lead by Viatcheslav Odintsov
Source code is not available for public use.
CONTACT AUTHOR:
Andrew A. Belov
email address: andrew_belov@mtu-net.ru
Program URL: http://www.arjsoft.com
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