From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

Good day folks,
I have a old RISC OS file I'm trying to ID, it has SQSH etc in the header
when viewed in StrongED, so we know it was Squashed.

How the (Badword) do I unsquash it?

Thanks
Dave
--

Dave Triffid
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In article <5bf5b59b12dave@triffid.co.uk>,
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

I have a old RISC OS file I'm trying to ID, it has SQSH etc in the
header when viewed in StrongED, so we know it was Squashed.

How the (Badword) do I unsquash it?

See Apps.!Squash.Help ?

Martin
--
Martin Avison
Note that unfortunately this email address will become invalid
without notice if (when) any spam is received.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In article <5bf5b64d72News03@avisoft.f9.co.uk>,
Martin <News03@avisoft.f9.co.uk> wrote:

In article <5bf5b59b12dave@triffid.co.uk>,
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

I have a old RISC OS file I'm trying to ID, it has SQSH etc in the
header when viewed in StrongED, so we know it was Squashed.

How the (Badword) do I unsquash it?

See Apps.!Squash.Help ?

Martin

Thank you Martin, but unfortunately neither method in the Help seems to unsquash the file in question.

However, a test squashed file I created myself and then unsquashed worked
okay, so I guess there must be something particular about the squashed
file in question.
What I know not?

Dave



Dave
--

Dave Triffid
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In message <5bf5cb2d5cdave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

In article <5bf5b64d72News03@avisoft.f9.co.uk>,
Martin <News03@avisoft.f9.co.uk> wrote:

In article <5bf5b59b12dave@triffid.co.uk>,
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

I have a old RISC OS file I'm trying to ID, it has SQSH etc in the
header when viewed in StrongED, so we know it was Squashed.

How the (Badword) do I unsquash it?

See Apps.!Squash.Help ?

Martin

Thank you Martin, but unfortunately neither method in the Help seems to unsquash the file in question.

However, a test squashed file I created myself and then unsquashed worked okay, so I guess there must be something particular about the squashed file in question.
What I know not?

The filetype?

David
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In article <b492e8f55b.DaveMeUK@BeagleBoard-xM>,
David Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> wrote:

In message <5bf5cb2d5cdave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

Thank you Martin, but unfortunately neither method in the Help seems to unsquash the file in question.

However, a test squashed file I created myself and then unsquashed
worked okay, so I guess there must be something particular about the squashed file in question. What I know not?

The filetype?

David

Mnnn!

PrntDefn (fc6) LasJet4-PS And I now want to unsquash it to see the defn
data.

Dave
--

Dave Triffid
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In message <5bf5ea0535dave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

In article <b492e8f55b.DaveMeUK@BeagleBoard-xM>,
David Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> wrote:

In message <5bf5cb2d5cdave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

Thank you Martin, but unfortunately neither method in the Help seems to unsquash the file in question.

However, a test squashed file I created myself and then unsquashed
worked okay, so I guess there must be something particular about the squashed file in question. What I know not?

The filetype?

David

Mnnn!

PrntDefn (fc6) LasJet4-PS And I now want to unsquash it to see the defn data.

Set the filetype to Squash.

David
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In message <5bf5b59b12dave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

Good day folks, I have a old RISC OS file I'm trying to ID, it has SQSH etc in the header when viewed in StrongED, so we know it was Squashed.

How the (Badword) do I unsquash it?

I've just been experimenting.

Set its filetype to Squash, then double-click it when the !Squash app
has been seen. It will be replaced by the unsquashed version, with
the correct filetype.

And if you think the Squash app behaves non-intuitively, and/or you
think that its Help is poor or misleading, I can only agree with you.

David
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In article <7ddbeaf55b.DaveMeUK@BeagleBoard-xM>,
David Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> wrote:

In message <5bf5ea0535dave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

In article <b492e8f55b.DaveMeUK@BeagleBoard-xM>,
David Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> wrote:

In message <5bf5cb2d5cdave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

Thank you Martin, but unfortunately neither method in the Help
seems to unsquash the file in question.

However, a test squashed file I created myself and then unsquashed worked okay, so I guess there must be something particular about
the squashed file in question. What I know not?

The filetype?

David

Mnnn!

PrntDefn (fc6) LasJet4-PS And I now want to unsquash it to see the
defn data.

Set the filetype to Squash.

David

Aha! That did the trick. :-)

Thanks

Dave
--

Dave Triffid
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

On 27/02/2025 22:27, David Higton wrote:

I've just been experimenting.

Set its filetype to Squash, then double-click it when the !Squash app
has been seen. It will be replaced by the unsquashed version, with
the correct filetype.

And if you think the Squash app behaves non-intuitively, and/or you
think that its Help is poor or misleading, I can only agree with you.

It's quite logical as its a RISC OS native format, and RISC OS work on
file types.

If you drag a file of type squash to it, it unsquashes and restores the original type contained in the file. For any other file type, it
squashes and saves as squash type.

SparkFS works differently as it has to handle files which have come from
other platforms and may not have the RISC OS file type of Archive or
Zip. Therefore it has to examine the file contents to determine what to
do with it.

---druck
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In message <vprv4a$3jk3o$1@dont-email.me>
druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:27, David Higton wrote:

I've just been experimenting.

Set its filetype to Squash, then double-click it when the !Squash app has been seen. It will be replaced by the unsquashed version, with the
correct filetype.

And if you think the Squash app behaves non-intuitively, and/or you think that its Help is poor or misleading, I can only agree with you.

It's quite logical as its a RISC OS native format, and RISC OS work on
file types.

If you drag a file of type squash to it, it unsquashes and restores the original type contained in the file. For any other file type, it squashes and saves as squash type.

True as far as it goes. What confused me mightily was the PrDefn files
for the original native Printers app, which are filetyped PrDefn but
contain Squash-format data. You can drag them to Squash all you like,
but what you'll get is an identical copy. Which is rather curious; it
clearly knows that the file has been Squashed, because it doesn't try
to squash it again.

The logical way of operating would seem to me to offer to unsquash it.

But, as Dave has found, you can't just unsquash a squashed file in the
general case - it has to be of filetype Squash.

David
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In article <3ab664f65b.DaveMeUK@BeagleBoard-xM>,
David Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> wrote:

In message <vprv4a$3jk3o$1@dont-email.me>
druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:27, David Higton wrote:

I've just been experimenting.

Set its filetype to Squash, then double-click it when the !Squash
app has been seen. It will be replaced by the unsquashed version,
with the correct filetype.

And if you think the Squash app behaves non-intuitively, and/or you
think that its Help is poor or misleading, I can only agree with you.

It's quite logical as its a RISC OS native format, and RISC OS work on
file types.

If you drag a file of type squash to it, it unsquashes and restores
the original type contained in the file. For any other file type, it squashes and saves as squash type.

True as far as it goes. What confused me mightily was the PrDefn files
for the original native Printers app, which are filetyped PrDefn but
contain Squash-format data. You can drag them to Squash all you like,
but what you'll get is an identical copy. Which is rather curious; it clearly knows that the file has been Squashed, because it doesn't try
to squash it again.

The logical way of operating would seem to me to offer to unsquash it.

But, as Dave has found, you can't just unsquash a squashed file in the general case - it has to be of filetype Squash.

David

That is indeed why I was confused...

I assumed Squash would see the header and unsquash it, but it didn't.

Dave
--

Dave Triffid
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In article <5bf66dd6b7dave@triffid.co.uk>,
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

I assumed Squash would see the header and unsquash it, but it didn't.

This is why we (RISC OS) have filetypes - to avoid having to have file extensions and having to interrogate files to find out what they are.

I have recently discovered that StrongED can do this interrogation usefully with text files with different purposes - in my case PMS/PMW music files,
and direct them to the appropriate app - but this is a useful addition, not
an effort to make-up for the file extension system or filetyping not
working as intended.

There are many ways to crack an egg, and RISC OS chose a different path all those years ago.

One /always/ had to double-click on a Squash file to decode it, even before other systems had a reliable working system.

As it's peculiar to RISC OS, why would it respond to these later inventions?

Squash was there right at the beginning - why should it be expected to
have changed to fit in with subsequent alternative or additional
developments?

John

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

In message <67c22f86$0$424$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
"John Williams (News)" <UCEbin@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

In article <5bf66dd6b7dave@triffid.co.uk>,
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

I assumed Squash would see the header and unsquash it, but it didn't.

This is why we (RISC OS) have filetypes - to avoid having to have file extensions and having to interrogate files to find out what they are.

I have recently discovered that StrongED can do this interrogation usefully with text files with different purposes - in my case PMS/PMW music files,
and direct them to the appropriate app - but this is a useful addition, not an effort to make-up for the file extension system or filetyping not
working as intended.

There are many ways to crack an egg, and RISC OS chose a different path all those years ago.

One /always/ had to double-click on a Squash file to decode it, even before other systems had a reliable working system.

As it's peculiar to RISC OS, why would it respond to these later
inventions?

Squash was there right at the beginning - why should it be expected to
have changed to fit in with subsequent alternative or additional developments?

I accept all of the above.

What I don't understand is why all the PrDefn files from years ago were filetyped as PrDefn, but internally were in Squash format. That goes
against the logic you set out above. I appreciate you are unlikely to
be able to answer that.

But, in the end, the results are similar to Zip files, in that they have
to be filetyped correctly in order that a double-click will open them.
There's a difference in that Zips cause a directory viewer to open,
whereas Squash files replace the squashed file with an unsquashed copy
of the original file. This is to be expected as a Zip can contain
multiple files and directories, but Squash only stores a single file.

David
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

On 28 Feb 2025 as I do recall,
David Higton wrote:

[snip]

What I don't understand is why all the PrDefn files from years ago were filetyped as PrDefn, but internally were in Squash format. That goes
against the logic you set out above. I appreciate you are unlikely to
be able to answer that.

I suspect it's like the way that Rhapsody had the ability to save its
own files in internally Squashed format, in order to save disc space;
because Squash is in theory guaranteed to be available via the OS
applications could support it transparently. Not in theory a problem if
you are dealing with files that the user will never be expected to edit manually, and that the application can decompress before using them.
--
Harriet Bazley == Loyaulte me lie ==

Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.acorn.apps

Am Thu, 27 Feb 2025 20:52:14 +0000 schrieb David Higton:

In message <5bf5ea0535dave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

In article <b492e8f55b.DaveMeUK@BeagleBoard-xM>,
David Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> wrote:

In message <5bf5cb2d5cdave@triffid.co.uk>
Dave <dave@triffid.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

Thank you Martin, but unfortunately neither method in the Help
seems to unsquash the file in question.

However, a test squashed file I created myself and then unsquashed
worked okay, so I guess there must be something particular about
the squashed file in question. What I know not?

The filetype?

David

Mnnn!

PrntDefn (fc6) LasJet4-PS And I now want to unsquash it to see the
defn data.

Set the filetype to Squash.

Once upon a time , hundreds of years ago , their was a programm called ! guesstype . Very handy in such circumstances.

Probably it should be polished and included in the RISC OS standard set
of tools.
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