Lhx

WARNING: THIS IS A BETA RELEASE - WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY - ONLY USE THIS ON BACKED
UP FILES!!!

Note: Use this release only for testing.

-- --

Lhx - 0.84.0 - BETA
============

Lhx is a file compression utility that compresses files to an AmigaOS compatible
XZ/LZMA compressed archive. where all AmigaOS file system protection bits and
possible comments are preserved.

XZ/LZMA is the same compression method used as in the acclaimed 7-Zip.


A Quick Comparison Test
-----------------------
A test drawer with some text and exe files, size 4 273 588 bytes:
 - Unpacked:           4 273 588 B  test
 - Lha (-lh5-)         2 929 454 B  test.lha
 - Lha (-lh6-)         2 929 454 B  test2.lha
 - Lhx (XZ/LZMA+lh0)   2 375 368 B  test.lhx


Installation
------------
Run the Install file in the package, or:
  1. Copy the "Lhx" file into your "C:" drawer.
  2. Optionally copy the documentation files; "Lhx.manual.doc.txt",
     "Lhx.readme" and "Lhx.readme.info" to presumably "SYS:Documentation/Lhx/".
  3. Done.


Examples
--------

; Pack/compress a file
1> lhx NEW somefile.lhx somefile
; Or shorthand works too
1> lhx -n somefile.lhx somefile

; Pack/compress a file from, and to RAM Disk:
1> lhx NEW ram:packed.lhx ram:t/usb.log

; Pack/compress a drawer and a file to RAM Disk:
1> lhx NEW ram:MyGame.lhx MyGame MyGame.info

; For extracting/unpacking the files use the EXTRACT command.
1> lhx EXTRACT packed.lhx
; Or shorthand works too
1> lhx -e packed.lhx

; For extracting/unpacking to the RAM Disk:
1> lhx EXTRACT packed.lhx ram:


Changes
-------
0.84.0 beta: (2018 Apr)
 - With this release, Lhx is out of Alpha state, and into Beta. All serious
   issues (as far as I know) are resolved.
 - Refactored the release archive into sort of a "self extracting archive". The
   idea is to extract the Lhx.lhx archive with a previous version of itself.
   (The latest version of the executable will be extracted from the
   "Lhx_temp/Lhx.lhx" file into "Lhx_temp/Lhx/Lhx", with the previous version
   located in "Lhx_temp/C/Lhx".)
 - Typos fixes in documentation.
0.83.0 alpha: (2018 Feb)
 - Implemented so only correct type of files can be extracted, through checks
   of file-headers (Magic Headers), and not solely of file extensions.
 - Fixed a few other issues regarding filetypes/fileheaders.
 - When extracting, the destination dir is checked that it really is a
   directory and not a regular file.
 - Fixed its own directory for the documentation in AutoInstall.
 - Clarified and fixed typos in help/documentation.
 - Among other things.
0.82.0 alpha: (2018 Feb)
 - Fixed a number of bugs.
 - Checks that the files to be archived / extracted to actually exists.
 - A lot of internal refactoring.
 - Implemented a logger (RAM:T/Lhx.log), to help finding bugs (although not all
   operations are logged (yet)).
 - Other miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
0.81.0 alpha: (2018 Feb)
 - Fixed bugs/issues with files not found and old temp. files.
 - Corrected wrong months in Recent section, thanks MickJT.
 - Added Install and AutoInstall files.
 - Added icons for the readme, etc.
 - Clarified readme and help text.
0.80.0 alpha: (2018 Feb)                                                       
 - 7z superseded by XZ/LZMA and program renamed to Lhz (from L7z), thanks for   
suggestion Fredrik Wikström. XZ/LZMA is a subset of 7z (used in 7-Zip).
 - Miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
0.7.0 alpha: (2018 Jan)
 - First public release.

...//snip//

    (See the doc/manual for more information.)


Requirements
------------
LhA version 2.15+
Xad_7z recommended


Author(s)
---------
- Lhx, developed by Marko K. Seppänen
- XZ, by The Tukaani Project (Lasse Collin, Antti Aalto, Ville Koskinen, Daniel
  Liljeqvist, Jaakko Pallari, Mikko Pouru, and more..., see
  https://tukaani.org/about.html )
- Liblzma, written by Lasse Collin
- 7z (LZMA/LZMA2), by Igor Pavlov
- LZMA, Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm


Other credit(s)
---------------
Fredrik Wikström, Chris Young, Sven Ottemann


Homepage
--------
http://m4rko.com/amiga