> A JAR is a special type of ZIP archive, which contains one or more > "data files" along with an XML "manifest" about the contents.
the ar file format is much better established then jar, quick to access (unlike jar), and very very very much simpler.
Excuse me?!?! JAR is used by every Java implementation in existence, and since it is 100% compatible with ZIP, means you have all of those implementations as well.
Second, because of ar's simplicity it isn't suitable for this task for a number of technical reasons including name size limitations, incomplete hierarchy support, etc.
a complex container format like jar is not very helpful,
JAR/Zip isn't very complex and there is LOTS of implementations to work from...
as the added complexity just gets in the way (we just need to bundle files...)
Yes, you need to bundle files, BUT in a hierarchical organization, esp. for layers...
Leonard -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leonard Rosenthol <mailto:leonardr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> <http://www.lazerware.com>
