regression in DEB archive support
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#1130 regression in DEB archive support
Symptoms:
7-zip doesn't list control.tar.gz file within Debian archives
How to reproduce:
1) Download any .deb archive (say, http://packages.debian.org/sid/i386/p7zip/download ), open it in 7-Zip file manager
2) Observe that, according to 7-Zip file manager, it contains only data.tar (why ".tar" when it's "tar.gz"? 7-Zip skips into the first (last?) gz'ed archive, trying to play smart?), and control.tar (or control.tar.gz) is nowhere to be seen
Versions not affected:
4.65
Versions affected:
9.15
This bug also affects Far 7-zip plugin (i.e. it is not specific to 7-Zip file manager)
Yes, when there is one main file in archive, 7-zip opens it by default.
Why do you want to see control.tar.gz?
How do you call a situation when there is data in archive, but the unpacker can't unpack it? And i don't mean just seeing it in the list in file manager, i mean that "7z.exe x debhelper_7.4.11_all.deb" won't give me contol.tar.gz either. There is just no way to get it.
As for why...Well, it might seem strange, but i do want to look at Debian packages' control information. Even if i'm using Windows. And it's somewhat awkward to run dpkg on Windows to unpack these archives.
Is it possible to make the 'opening main file' behaviour disableable? That should be sufficient. I do understand that current default behaviour "just works" for most people.
You can open top level .deb archive with 2 ways:
1) Context Menu / Open Archive > / *
2) command line: -t* switch
>Why do you want to see control.tar.gz?
Because deb is not just regular archive! Sometimes it's very useful to read control, config and other scripts. Please do not drop this great feature.
P.S. The last working release is 9.10.
sevenzuser-gknb, i've closed the bug, since i am content with enforcing archive type (-t* on commandline or "Open Archive-> *" in context menu). If you want to argue further - feel free to re-open it (although i doubt that you'll get any results).
Though i do agree that a debian archive is definitely not a simple archive, and control information IS an important part of it which should not be discarded by default (and people are not supposed to unpack debian archives manually anyway, unless they know what they are doing, in which case they will definitely want control information).
Please open this again! I really really don't understand why adding a "control.tar[.gz]" item below the "data.tar" should be this controversial!!!
>Why do you want to see control.tar.gz?
I have an apt-based smartphone and I use Windows to install the .deb files to it. Now sometimes I want to see the dependencies and the version of some deb files.
The above was the minor reason. The main reason is that an archiver is supposed to show entire contents, don't agree?
>people are not supposed to unpack debian archives manually anyway, unless they know what they are doing
Actually they will know what they're doing after their first *.deb unpacking, since 7-zip can't compress the files back to deb. This is the case with many other formats, e.g windows installer and nsis archives.
Being able to open Debian packages and browsing the control files was a killer feature of 7zip to me. The contextual menu is out of reach when opening the package from the download list of Firefox. Please reconsider this issue.
Yes please reopen this, it's very confusing when I open a .deb file in 7-zip's "open archive" explorer, and it only lists one file in there, when in reality there are 3! (as in, today, there is no way to pop open the control section of a deb, which is what I was hoping to browse/extract from). Thank you.
This is a severe bug, it fools the user saying that the file content is something it is not. Interestingly this "facility" is not performed for tar.gz files. I have been extracting these files with dumb double steps since long, for countless times.
So 7-zip is smart enough to create an unbelievable data reliability flaw, at the same time it is dumb enough to just grok a tag.gz. Igor, I appreciate your work, but I couldn't believe when I first read "why do you want to see control.tar.gz".