Many compression methods support both archives, for example zip or 7z and single file compression -.gzip or .xz
The difference is that archive may contain multiple files, and is more like a folder. Single file compression is more like a file format.
Treating single compressed files as archives is fast, because plugin code runs in process, but awkward in the UI because every such file has two folder levels - compressed archive, and uncompressed content.
Instead, in my company, we define a file format (for example .xml.xz) that uses an external decompressor.
That is convenient - every file gets converted to text behind the scenes, and appears only once in the UI, but slow. In our tests TotalZip archiver plugin is 60 times faster than spawning a command line 7zip.
The request is simple: in the file formats conversion source, support using an archiver plugin for single file conversion. In that mode the archiver would function as a converter, and report an error for corrupted archives, or for archives with more than one entry.
Doing this would magically enable gzip, and xz etc, and allow using Total Commander plugins as converters, not just archivers.
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The difference is that archive may contain multiple files, and is more like a folder. Single file compression is more like a file format.
Treating single compressed files as archives is fast, because plugin code runs in process, but awkward in the UI because every such file has two folder levels - compressed archive, and uncompressed content.
Instead, in my company, we define a file format (for example .xml.xz) that uses an external decompressor.
That is convenient - every file gets converted to text behind the scenes, and appears only once in the UI, but slow. In our tests TotalZip archiver plugin is 60 times faster than spawning a command line 7zip.
The request is simple: in the file formats conversion source, support using an archiver plugin for single file conversion. In that mode the archiver would function as a converter, and report an error for corrupted archives, or for archives with more than one entry.
Doing this would magically enable gzip, and xz etc, and allow using Total Commander plugins as converters, not just archivers.
.
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