From: "Thomas Søndergaard" <thomass@...>
Date: 2002-07-10T00:20:46+09:00
Subject: Re: SV: SV: [ANN] Archive 0.2

> So the assumption is that headers precede data?
>
> Note that the Zip format usually has two headers per file: one before
> the file data, and one at the very end of the file.
>
> So ideally the archive reader would get the stream first and read the
> end directory if the stream was seekable, then position before the
> first header.

The information in the central directory structure is not too relevant
unless you want to extract the entry to a filesystem, in which case the
permission attributes will be relevant. Maybe someone will miss the entry
comment field, which is not in the local header either.

> Then as individual pre-file headers were read, their information could
> be merged as appropriate with the end-of-zip (Central Directory)
> information.

The local headers do not carry any information that is not in the central
directory, so if you have already read the central directory entry, no
merging is necessary.

Thomas