vms/README for UnZip 5.1 and later, 18 Apr 94 --------------------------------------------- [Full VMS documentation for UnZip 5.1 is available by anonymous ftp from ftp.uu.net:/pub/archiving/zip/VMS/unz51doc.zip] Notes about using UnZip and zipfiles under VMS (see INSTALL for instructions on compiling): - Install UnZip as foreign symbol by adding this to login.com: $ unzip == "$disk:[dir]unzip.exe" $ zipinfo == "$disk:[dir]unzip.exe -Z" where "disk" and "dir" are location of UnZip executable; the "$" before the disk name is important. Some people, including the author, prefer a short alias such as "ii" instead of "zipinfo"; edit to taste. - After proper installation, UnZip is invoked just as in Unix or MS-DOS: "unzip -opts archive files". The hyphen ('-') is the switch character, not the slash ('/') as in native VMS commands. A portable tool can be designed to operate like the native programs on every system, or it can be designed to operate consistently across all systems; Info-ZIP has chosen the latter course. At some future date we may add support which allows the user (or installer) to choose native look-and-feel over Info- ZIP look-and-feel, but this is not a priority... - VMS (or the C compiler) translates all command-line text to lowercase unless it is quoted, making some options and/or filenames not work as intended. For example: unzip -V zipfile vms/README is tranlated to unzip -v zipfile vms/readme which may not match the contents of the zipfile and definitely won't extract the file with its version number as intended. This can be avoided by enclosing the uppercase stuff in quotes: unzip "-V" zipfile "vms/README" Note that quoting the whole line probably won't work, since it would be interpreted as a single argument by the C library. - Wildcards which refer to files internal to the archive behave like Unix wildcards, not VMS ones. This is both a matter of consistency (see above) and power--full Unix regular expressions are supported, so that one can specify "all .c and .h files which start with a, b, c or d and do not have a 2 before the dot" as "[a-d]*[^2].[ch]". Of course, "*.[ch]" is a much more common wildcard specification, but the power is there if you need it. Note that "*" matches zipfile directory separators ('/'), too. - Created files get whatever permissions were stored in the archive (mapped to VMS and/or masked with your default permissions, depending on the originating operating system), but created directories additionally in- herit the (possibly more restrictive) permissions of the parent directory. And obviously things won't work if you don't have permission to write to the extraction directory. - When transferring files, particularly via Kermit, pay attention to the settings! In particularly, zipfiles must be transferred in some binary mode, which is NOT Kermit's default mode, and this mode must usually be set on BOTH sides of the transfer (e.g., both VAX and PC). See the notes below for details. From INFO-ZIP Digest (Wed, 6 Nov 1991), Volume 91, Issue 290: Date: Tue, 5 Nov 91 15:31 CDT From: Hugh Schmidt **************************************************** *** VMS ZIP and PKZIP compatibility using KERMIT *** **************************************************** Many use Procomm's kermit to transfer zipped files between PC and VMS VAX. The following VMS kermit settings make VMS Zip/UnZip compatible with PC Zip/UnZip or PKZIP/PKUNZIP: VMS kermit Procomm kermit ------------------- -------------------- Uploading PC zipfile to VMS: set file type fixed set file type binary Downloading VMS zipfile to PC: set file type block set file type binary "Block I/O lets you bypass the VMS RMS record-processing capabilities entirely", (Guide to VMS file applications, Section 8.5). The kermit guys must have known this!