Jcat: A New Alternative To Microsoft Catalog Files

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Jcat: A New Alternative To Microsoft Catalog Files

Prolific open-source developer Richard Hughes of Red Hat who has been responsible for the creation of PackageKit, the ColorHug colorimeter hardware, GNOME Software, and for the past number of years focused on the Fwupd firmware updating utility and Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) has a new open-source project...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Jcat-Alt-Microsoft-Catalog

[angrypie]

Why not call it HugCat tho

[uid313]

Is there any way to get in contact with Microsoft to request them to document the Catalog file format?

[calc]

Is there any way to get in contact with Microsoft to request them to document the Catalog file format?

20 years ago this would have been a farcical request, but the new cuddly Microsoft might do it if asked.

[azdaha]

gzipped JSON file with signatures, eh? Seems almost too simple; therefore, might be a great success, imo.

[J.G.]

Like SAK on the blog, I am not entirely sure if gzip is worth it? When stored on disk on a server, I would imagine the filesystem has .json files compressed. When sent over the network it's gzipped. But in the meantime everyone can cat .json files, but not .jcat files.
I feel like I am missing something obvious.

[Tomin]

Like SAK on the blog, I am not entirely sure if gzip is worth it? When stored on disk on a server, I would imagine the filesystem has .json files compressed. When sent over the network it's gzipped. But in the meantime everyone can cat .json files, but not .jcat files.
I feel like I am missing something obvious.

zcat works fine. And there seems to be also zless on my system, works like less but is meant for gzipped text files.

I personally think it's a good idea to use gzip here. The signatures don't probably compress that much but metadata and other duplicate information will. Performance is not really an issue here.

[J.G.]

zcat works fine. And there seems to be also zless on my system, works like less but is meant for gzipped text files.

I personally think it's a good idea to use gzip here. The signatures don't probably compress that much but metadata and other duplicate information will. Performance is not really an issue here.

I never used zcat or zless before. Yes then I see no reason not to.