Re: [Zutils-bug] please reintroduce zutils binary

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Hello Johannes,

Johannes Schauer wrote:
> version 1.2 removed the zutils binary. I want to plead for its re-inclusion for
> the next zutils release.

This is not easy and only partially useful because version 1.1 provided 
3 binaries (zcmp, zdiff and zutils).


> Many distributions supply a gzip package which supplies the same binaries that
> zutils provides (zcat, zcmp, zdiff...) though of course limited to extracting
> gzip. So when one installs zutils, these binaries are replaced by the ones from
> zutils.

The way recommended by the gzip maintainers to solve this replacement[1] 
is to rename the gzip scripts and man pages using "./configure 
--program-transform-name='s/^z/gz/'"

[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gzip/2012-01/msg00005.html

This is explained in the INSTALL file from zutils.


> What do you think?

I hope the following naming scheme will prevail in the long term because 
it is more logical and thus produces less surprises:

 zcat --> multi-format
gzcat --> gzip-only
bzcat --> bzip2-only


Best regards,
Antonio.