CLASS ARCHIVE SOFTWARE PACKAGES

SYSTEM V utilities enable software developers to provide delivery of complex packages onto a UNIX operating system. An enhancement to the UNIX System V ABI format called class archive format enables sets of files to be combined into archives, these files being compressed or encrypted. The compressed/encrypted ABI package install with behavior defined in System V ABI. The class archive format allows a manufacturer to combine files from the ABI format reloc directory and root directory, into an archive directory. Class action format adds a directory called archive to the ABI format. Any class of files that are intended for archive is combined into a single file, and each file is then placed into the archive directory as class1, class2, etc. All files that are archived in this manner are removed from the standard ABI reloc directory and root directory, and an install class action script is placed into the scripts portion of the standard ABI install directory. Three interfaces are provided in the form of three keywords. These three keywords are (1) PKG_SRC_NOVERIFY, (2) PKG_DST_QKVERIFY, and (3) PKG_CAS_PASSRELATIVE. These keywords are used to designate classes of the archive directory that require special treatment. The format of each keyword statement is “keyword=class1 [class2 class 3 etc.]”. Each class action script contains Bourne shell commands that are executed by pkgadd to install the files from the archive directory.