Searching archives recursively

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katzco
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Searching archives recursively

Post by *katzco »

This issue was discussed before, but I don't know if it was considered as an enhancement.
TC gives a nice virtualization of archives as if they were directories. You can double click a ZIP file and see the files inside it and in case that ZIP file contains another ZIP file you can double click it again. However, "search" does not work that way. It supports "Search archives" and "Search subdirectories", but there is no way to achieve recursive archive search what so ever (I have this need every day, and then I go through the tedious process of unpacking the first "layer" before searching).
I suggest that the "Search subdirectories" combo will be renamed "search recursively (directories/archives)" and if the user enables the "search archives" checkbox, an archive-within-archive search will be performed accordingly. Any other user interface will be welcomed as well...

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jjk
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Post by *jjk »

The last time I asked for that, Christian answered that it was too complex, if I remember well.
But it was about 2000. No more track in this forum :(

It is still a wish for me.
So, support ++
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MVV
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Post by *MVV »

My opinion about this:
1. I have no recursive archives because it is ugly. It doesn't improve compression but improves complexity and inconvenience.
2. If I found such recursive archive, I'll unpack it. :) And, if I need to keep archive, create an archive with folders instead of archives.
3. I agree with Christian, it is quite complex to make such procedure.
katzco
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Post by *katzco »

Complex does not mean useless (usually on the contrary...). All I say is that if file navigation through archives looks and feels like virtual directories, and TC can drill in and out of them seamlessly, so does search should be.
In any case I agree that recursive archives are ugly, but I come across them every day at work, and therefore recursive search will be a highly appreciated addition.
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Post by *jjk »

I had also your problem. Now I don't make anymore recursive archives.
But I have still some ones.
I am looking for a tool to transform them into archives with subdirectories inside instead of sub-archives.
Is there anyone who knows that ?
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ado
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Post by *ado »

MVV wrote:My opinion about this:
1. I have no recursive archives because it is ugly. It doesn't improve compression but improves complexity and inconvenience.
2. If I found such recursive archive, I'll unpack it. :) And, if I need to keep archive, create an archive with folders instead of archives.
3. I agree with Christian, it is quite complex to make such procedure.
well sometimes you do not have another option:
I have abc.ear (web application) and inside is a few .war files, that contains beside another files some .jar files. EAR, WAR and JAR files are zip files just different extension. When you want to deploy that app to application server, you have to use that .ear.
I would love to have recursive search in .war file in .ear. And not just in regular search, but also in Compare by contents - in fact I am doing it almost daily to compare two .ear files, but I cannot do it all at one shot; I have to go inside of both and then compare - if any archive inside is different, I have to again navigate to it, enter inside in both panels and run Compare by contents

ado
PeterTBCarp2
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Post by *PeterTBCarp2 »

This introduces the question of how TC Search treats Windows 7 'Libraries'.

Groupings, like 'Playlists' in another context.

Has this been discussed anywhere, yet?
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Post by *StatusQuo »

Who the hell is General Failure, and why is he reading my disk?
-- TC starter menu: Fast yet descriptive command access!
katzco
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Post by *katzco »

StatusQuo, thank you for answering Peter's question. Any comment about the original subject?
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Post by *StatusQuo »

katzco wrote:Any comment about the original subject?
Personally I rarely use cascaded archives.
But it would be useful for TGZ format (TAR in GZ archive), in Linux a quite common format. So:

Support, useful.
Who the hell is General Failure, and why is he reading my disk?
-- TC starter menu: Fast yet descriptive command access!
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Balderstrom
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Post by *Balderstrom »

katzco wrote:All I say is that if file navigation through archives looks and feels like virtual directories, and TC can drill in and out of them seamlessly,
It's actually not seamless, TC is able to open the first tier of archives (zip/rar/cab/etc) and display the file lists as if it was a directory. Any further archives within an archive are actually unpacked to the Temp folder to be able to view the contents.

Code: Select all

AddressBar:: c:\Program Files\Accessories\TrayMenu\Copy of TRMN202b_DLL.rar\*.*
   TRMN202b_DLL\
   Window List.rar
now I click on Window List.rar

Code: Select all

AddressBar:: c:\UsR\FOO\LOCALS~1\Temp\_tc\Window List.rar\*.*
   Window List.windowlist
Similiar to how a Tar.gz is considered a single file that has been compressed, TC will unpack the whole thing to the Temp folder before displaying any contents.

And that is just one additional archive level, imagine an archive in an archive in an archive...
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ado
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Post by *ado »

Balderstrom wrote: Similiar to how a Tar.gz is considered a single file that has been compressed, TC will unpack the whole thing to the Temp folder before displaying any contents.

And that is just one additional archive level, imagine an archive in an archive in an archive...
right, true, but TC has to do it anyway if you choose to search for text in files and not just by filename

ado
jpyllman
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Post by *jpyllman »

Searching inside .tgz/tar.gz would be very nice. A very common thing if you work with *nix systems. I use *nix system and cygwin in windows. I have tons of .tgz/tar.gz that I would like to include in my searches.
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Balderstrom
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Post by *Balderstrom »

I don't believe its possible, without unpacking. From my recollection of *nix, TAR's were searchable and TGZ/TBZ/TAR.gz/TAR.bz were not.
GZIP and BZIP are single file compressors, and are next to useless without TAR.

CABS aren't much better, but at least they have a dff file you can generate to do a multi-cab archive that is easily searchable.

All(MOST) of Microsoft's patches are self-extracting-multi-file CAB. CAB also can use LZ* compression instead of Zip.

7z is probably a decent choice, but I find it far too slow and memory intensive for "some" extra compression. I generally turn all my archives into RARs as it has the best overall feature-set and on-par compression, IMHO :-)

The only way it might be doable is utilizing something like PFM's Audit Package, which allows you to generate a PersonalFolder that has ZIP compression. When that file is mounted (as a Folder) You can then drop Files into the "mounted Folder". Everything inside is automatically compressed ZIP. So if you put multiple .ZIP or .RAR files inside then they would still be able to be opened as usual.

Of course when that Folder is unmounted it isn't much of anything. aside from named as FOOBAR.PFO or the like.
When mounted again you would see|have access to all of your files inside.

It's very interesting technology really, and I don't forsee Mr.Ghisler implementing something like that from scratch - it would be far too much work when so many other things could be done. Perhaps it could be licensed? I dunno.

I know I've been having fun playing around with the TemporaryFolders (on-the-fly-RAM drives), Personal(Compressed)Folders/CFS, and converted compressed CD/DVD ISO's.
*BLINK* TC9 Added WM_COPYDATA and WM_USER queries for scripting.
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Post by *DrShark »

Balderstrom wrote:I don't believe its possible, without unpacking.
Of course it requires unpacking. And makes a search much longer in time. Look at antivirus scanners, they all scan archive formats in that way...
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