4 ms·
Tar files are human readable - file names, sizes, mtime and so on are all in ASCII text numerals, immediately preceding each file's content. Maybe not human wr
by mappu 6y ago
Tar files are human readable - file names, sizes, mtime and so on are all in ASCII text numerals, immediately preceding each file's content.
Maybe not human writable, there are some \x00 bytes used for padding.
- h_anna_h 6y agoInteresting, I would really not expect sizes and time to be in ASCII. I wonder their reasoning was.
- mbreese 6y agoDebugging text is easier and the bulk of the data is binary anyway, so there would be no great file savings with a "pure" binary protocol. That's the same rationale for HTML and text-based internet protocols -- they are easier to write and debug. This is a particular concern when you're talking about a file format that has to work on wide variety of architectures and operating systems. Having a common ASCII encoding makes it significantly easier to build an interoperable file format.