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1 UNZIPSFX
unzipsfx - self-extracting stub for prepending to ZIP
archives
<name of unzipsfx+archive combo> [-cfptuz[ajnoqsCLV$]]
[file(s) ...] [-x xfile(s) ...]
unzipsfx is a modified version of unzip designed to be
prepended to existing ZIP archives in order to form self-
extracting archives. Instead of taking its first non-flag
argument to be the zipfile(s) to be extracted, unzipsfx
seeks itself under the name by which it was invoked and
tests or extracts the contents of the appended archive.
Because the executable stub adds bulk to the archive (the
whole purpose of which is to be as small as possible), a
number of the regular version's less-vital capabilities have
been removed. Among these are the usage (or help) screen,
the listing and diagnostic functions (-l and -v), the abil-
ity to decompress older compression formats (the ``reduce,''
``shrink'' and ``implode'' methods), and the ability to
extract to a directory other than the current one. Decryp-
tion is supported as a compile-time option but should be
avoided unless the attached archive contains encrypted
files.
Note that self-extracting archives made with unzipsfx are no
more (or less) portable across different operating systems
than is the unzip executable itself. In general a self-
extracting archive made on a particular Unix system, for
example, will only self-extract under the same flavor of
Unix. Regular unzip may still be used to extract the embed-
ded archive as with any normal zipfile, although it will
generate a harmless warning about extra bytes at the begin-
ning of the zipfile.
[file(s)]
An optional list of archive members to be processed.
Regular expressions (wildcards) similar to those in
Unix egrep(1) may be used to match multiple members.
These wildcards may contain:
* matches a sequence of 0 or more characters
? matches exactly 1 character
[...]
matches any single character found inside the
brackets; ranges are specified by a beginning
character, a hyphen, and an ending character. If
an exclamation point or a caret (`!' or `^') fol-
lows the left bracket, then the range of charac-
ters within the brackets is complemented (that is,
anything except the characters inside the brackets
is considered a match).
(Be sure to quote any character which might otherwise
be interpreted or modified by the operating system,
particularly under Unix and VMS.)
[-x xfile(s)]
An optional list of archive members to be excluded from
processing. Since wildcard characters match directory
separators (`/'), this option may be used to exclude
any files which are in subdirectories. For example,
``unzip foo *.[ch] -x */*'' would extract all C source
files in the main directory, but none in any subdirec-
tories. Without the -x option, all C source files in
all directories within the zipfile would be extracted.
2 Options
unzipsfx supports the following unzip options: -c and
-p (extract to standard output/screen), -f and -u (freshen
and update existing files upon extraction), -t (test
archive) and -z (print archive comment). All normal listing
options (-l, -v and -Z) have been removed, but the testing
option (-t) may be used as a ``poor man's'' listing. Alter-
natively, those creating self-extracting archives may wish
to include a short listing in the zipfile comment.
See unzip for a more complete description of these
options.
MODIFIERS
unzipsfx currently supports all unzip modifiers: -a
(convert text files), -n (never overwrite), -o (overwrite
without prompting), -q (operate quietly), -C (match names
case-insenstively), -L (convert uppercase-OS names to lower-
case), -j (junk paths) and -V (retain version numbers); plus
the following operating-system specific options: -X
(restore VMS owner/protection info), -s (convert spaces in
filenames to underscores [DOS, OS/2, NT]) and -$ (restore
volume label [DOS, OS/2, NT, Amiga]).
(Support for regular ASCII text-conversion may be removed in
future versions, since it is simple enough for the archive's
creator to ensure that text files have the appropriate for-
mat for the local OS. EBCDIC conversion will of course con-
tinue to be supported since the zipfile format implies ASCII
storage of text files.)
See unzip for a more complete description of these
modifiers.
2 Environment_options
unzipsfx uses the same environment variables as unzip
does, although this is likely to be an issue only for the
person creating and testing the self-extracting archive.
See unzip for details.
2 Decryption
Decryption is supported exactly as in unzip; that is,
interactively with a non-echoing prompt for the password(s).
See unzip for details. Once again, note that if the
archive has no encrypted files there is no reason to use a
version of unzipsfx with decryption support; that only adds
to the size of the archive.
2 Examples
To create a self-extracting archive letters from a regular
zipfile letters.zip and change the new archive's permissions
to be world-executable under Unix:
cat unzipsfx letters.zip > letters
chmod 755 letters
To create the same archive under MS-DOS, OS/2 or NT (note
the use of the /b [binary] option to the copy command):
copy /b unzipsfx.exe+letters.zip letters.exe
Under VMS:
copy unzipsfx.exe,letters.zip letters.exe
letters == "$currentdisk:[currentdir]letters.exe"
(The VMS append command may also be used. The second com-
mand installs the new program as a ``foreign command'' capa-
ble of taking arguments.) To test (or list) the newly
created self-extracting archive:
letters -t
To test letters quietly, printing only a summary message
indicating whether the archive is OK or not:
letters -tq
To extract the complete contents into the current directory,
recreating all files and subdirectories as necessary:
letters
To extract only the README file to standard output (the
screen):
letters -c README
To print only the zipfile comment:
letters -z
2 Limitations
The principle and fundamental limitation of unzipsfx is that
it is not portable across architectures or operating sys-
tems, and therefore neither are the resulting archives. For
some architectures there is limited portability, however
(e.g., between some flavors of Intel-based Unix).
unzipsfx has no knowledge of the user's PATH, so in general
an archive must either be in the current directory when it
is invoked, or else a full or relative path must be given.
If a user attempts to extract the archive from a directory
in the PATH other than the current one, unzipsfx will print
a warning to the effect, ``can't find myself.'' This is
always true under Unix and may be true in some cases under
MS-DOS, depending on the compiler used (Microsoft C fully
qualifies the program name, but other compilers may not).
Under OS/2 and NT there are operating-system calls available
which provide the full path name, so the archive may be
invoked from anywhere in the user's path. The situation is
not known for Atari TOS, MacOS, etc.
As noted above, a number of the normal unzip functions
have been removed in order to make unzipsfx smaller: usage
and diagnostic info, listing functions and extraction to
other directories. Also, only stored and deflated files are
supported. The latter limitation is mainly relevant to
those who create SFX archives, however.
VMS users must know how to set up self-extracting archives
as foreign commands in order to use any of unzipsfx's
options. This is not necessary for simple extraction, but
the command to do so then becomes, e.g., ``run letters'' (to
continue the examples given above).
unzipsfx is not supported on the Amiga because of the way
the loader works; the entire archive contents would be
loaded into memory by default. It may be possible to work
around this by defining the attached archive to be a ``debug
hunk,'' but compatibility problems between the ROM levels of
older Amigas and newer ones are likely to cause problems
regardless.
All current bugs in unzip exist in unzipsfx as well.
2 Diagnostics
unzipsfx's exit status (error level) is identical to that of
unzip; see the corresponding help entry.
2 See_also
funzip, unzip, zip, zipcloak, zipgrep,
zipinfo, zipnote, zipsplit
2 Authors
Greg Roelofs was responsible for the basic modifications to
UnZip necessary to create UnZipSFX. See unzip for the
current list of zip-bugs authors, or the file CONTRIBS in
the UnZip source distribution for the full list of Info-ZIP
contributors.
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