Esort v0.1       (C) 1999 Arpad Gereoffy (A'rpi/ESP-team)  <arpi@scene.hu>
 ==========
 
 Esort is a very simple implementation of ESP archiver's sorting function
 under UNIX/LINUX. It will be the base of ESP v2.0.
 Currently you can use with TAR and GZIP or other solid compress prg.
 
 Compile:   gcc filter2.c -o esort
 ~~~~~~~~
 
 Usage:  It reads file list from STDIN and write sorted list to STDOUT
 ~~~~~~  ( esort <listfile >sortedlist )
 
 It's difficult to use now :-(
 For example: (it will compress contents of 'dirname' to 'dirname.tar.gz')
   find dirname -print | esort > list
   tar -cv -T list --no-recursion -f - | gzip -9 > dirname.tar.gz
   rm list
 But you can write a script to do this.

 In most cases it will produce better ratio than simple tar+gzip, because
 'esort' sort files optimized for the solid compression (gzip).
 For example compressed Linux Kernel 2.2.9 source:
    tar+gzip:       13954k
    esort+tar+gzip: 13704k
 Midnight Commander 4.1.35 source:
    tar+gzip:       1617k
    esort+tar+gzip: 1611k
 Ok, I know, it isn't too much, about 1..2%.
 But you can save a little disk space, or some time for modem downloaders,
 and IT DOESN'T REQUIRES SPECIAL PROGRAM FOR DECOMPRESS! It will produce
 standard portable (except M$ Winsux :)) .tar.gz files.

 Note: It doesn't work with bzip2, I don't know why. Bzip2's ratio
 will be worst using Esort before.
 
 Please send ideas (and bugreports) to: arpi@esp-team.scene.hu, thanks.