[COMPRESS-292] Add support for virtual formats

• Type: New Feature
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 1.9
• Component/s: Archivers, Compressors
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Arno Unkrig
• Created: 03/Nov/14 05:22
• Updated: 19/Jan/15 14:44

Description

Hello COMPRESS team!

Most applications know at compile-time which archive/compression format they want to use, but some don't. ArchiveStreamFactory and CompressorStreamFactory provide minimal support for runtime format processing, but more comprehensive handling would be greatly appreciated.

I propose the addition of the ArchiveFormat and CompressionFormat interfaces, together with their factories, to implement the following:

• Detection of archive/compression formats from contents, file name or format name
• Conversion of archive/compressed file names, e.g. "mydir" => "mydir.tar" => "mydir.tar.gz"
• Runtime extensibility through format auto-registration; factory method allFormats() informs which formats are available
• Writing archive entries without knowing the archive type at compile-time
• Automated conversion of archive entries when copying from one format to another

A sample design is available here. If you like it, I would gladly donate it to the the project. The current license is "New BSD", which is (hopefully) compatible with yours.

Regards,
Arno Unkrig