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Hi All
I would like to know if there is a huge difference between using zip or jpa ?
What should the preferred archive be?

thanks
Matthew

In the olden days, the CRC32 checksums in the zip file format would frequently be corrupted, causing the zips to be reported as bad by any zip client. That problem was finally traced to specific versions of php that returned bytes in reverse order. Akeeba will automatically compensate for these versions of php and produce valid zip files.

The ongoing problem with corrupt zip files prompted Nicholas to create the jpa file format. It is slightly faster and more resource friendly than zip, it does not use the checksums, so it doesn't have to take the time and processor power to calculate them.

The down side of the jpa format is that your favorite zip client won't read it. There should not be any significant difference in the size of the zip archive vs. the jpa archive.

The bottom line is that it isn't as important as it was back in the JoomlaPack days when we were getting zip files the couldn't be extracted with normal zip clients. The jpa format is a little faster but can only be extracted with our extraction utilities, available on the downloads page.

Hi Dale
Thanks for the clarification.

What I was seeing when creating the archive is the file sizes was different.
If the jpa format is faster to compress, then this is the option which would make more sense.

I dont think its too much of a hassle to use the extract utility, as long as it is maintained.

Thanks for the clarification.

Matthew

Matthew,

It would be normal to see some variation between the two formats, or even between backups using the same format. Each backup adds a line to your database, which would change the size. The difference between the two archive formats should not be significant.

There used to be a command line extractor, which I think has been abandoned as the GUI version, eXtract, has matured. The eXtract program is very actively supported and developed. :)