GNU bug report logs - #22935
W32 Binaries should have a top-level directory

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Message #11 received at 22935 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: phillip.lord <at> russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 22935 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#22935: W32 Binaries should have a top-level directory
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2016 19:35:59 +0000

Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> writes:

>> From: phillip.lord <at> russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
>> Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2016 21:12:48 +0000
>> 
>> I would suggest that future Emacs zip files contain a top-level
>> directory with the same name as the zip file, underneath which comes
>> /var, /share, /bin, plus README.W32, plus COPYING. This still makes it
>> easily to install over an existing distribution with a copy command.
>
> I don't quite agree with the last sentence.  There's no 'cp' on
> Windows out of the box, so either people will use XCOPY or the Windows
> Explorer.  Both will by default nag users about overwriting existing
> files in the destination, and not everyone will know how to work
> around that.

Windows explorer is out-of-the-box, and it asks once whether to merge
the contents. I'm not sure how the windows explorer "extract" option
behaves

My own feeling is that most of the people who are worried about a
top-level directory will be power users and will work around the
problem. Probably by using "cp" from cygwin or msys.

> Besides, I think most people will simply leave the files in the
> directory where they were unpacked, and will then have to play with
> their PATH or rename the top-level directory.

I think most people will navigate to "bin", then short-cut
"runemacs.exe" to desktop.

> By contrast, if the zip archive does NOT have a top-level directory,
> it is easy to create one upon unpacking: the 'unzip' command has the
> "-d" switch for that, and unpacking from Explorer will actually
> suggest a separate directory by default.

Using the "-d" switch requires you to name the directory, which is
slightly irritating. And reversing the unpack if you forget is either
irritating (requiring three directory deletes) or very difficult (if you
already have any of the existing directories where you are unpacking.

My own archives without a top-level directory are for package management
systems, not for users. There is a reason archives like this are called
tarbombs.

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