MacHacha

1. What is this? Features...
2. Make it work!
4. Requirements, license, history...


1. What is this? Features...
If you usually download movies, music or large archives from news groups, public web servers, streamload, edonkey or whatever place, this is your tool.
If you'd like transportate a 5MB document in a floppy disk to your home, or fit a 400MB archive in two ZIP discs, or even move a 7GB film to a computer with a DVD burner and you only have a single CD-RW, this is your tool.
If you wish share a 6MB document with your PC-friends over the internet and you can only put up online chunks of 1MB because of your ISP restrictions, this is your tool.

MacHacha will do a simple job: split archives into smaller parts and join them when requested.

What are the benefits of using MacHacha instead other apps?

You can share your documents even if your friends doesn't own a macintosh.
You don't need switch to a PC (or VirtualPC) to join the archives you get.
You can generate and join full-compatible UNIX/Linux segments.
You can generate and join segments compatible with other Mac OS X apps, such as E Pluribus Unum, Splitter, Split&Concat or xMerge.
You can create mac-compliant segments preserving resource fork and meta-information using the MacHacha format.
You can automate your own projects (eg, "I wish split 1000+ documents"), because MacHacha supports AppleScripting.

What are the supported formats by MacHacha?
Currently, both split & join: Hacha, WinSplit, FastSplit, Split&Concat, HJSplit & MacHacha. It supports Hacha's newest version and joining of Windows MasterSplitter (see FAQ in this distribution) and RAR normal and multi-segment files.
Format? Talk me about file extensions you can join/split...
.0, .000, .001, .exe & .machacha

2. Make it work!
Drop a file onto MacHacha and it will do the job...



MacHacha will recognize the format you're trying to join (file extensions .0, .000, .001, .exe and .machacha). If none of these matches the requirements, MacHacha will prompt you automatically to choose a format to split your file.
When joining a file, MacHacha will advertise you about potential problems or corrupted files.

What is the best output format to split my files?
If these are going to travel through the web, you may choose Hacha, FastSplit or WinSplit, since they include useful information about checksumming and file corruption. You can also choose the MacHacha format if you need preserving resource fork and meta-info, but you will need a mac with MacHacha to join the segments.
If these will stay in a disk, you can choose any compatible with your recipient (for a PC, any except for MacHacha; for a Mac using MacHacha, whatever one will work good; for any *nix machine, HJSplit will do the job).

3. Requirements, license, history...
Current version of MacHacha requires OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and Intel processor. Version 3.3 (available above) is a Universal Binary (Intel/PPC) working fine under OS X 10.4, 10.5 and even 10.6 (without the fixes or improvements of higher MacHacha versions)..

License: this app is now freeware and open-source under request. Formats produced by MacHacha should not be property of nobody, but if they are, rights are from their respective authors.
MacHacha will not crash nor freeze your system. If your system crashes or freezes while running MacHacha, I'd like my little app not to be damaged, so be careful when you crash or freeze your system.

You can find here (75kb) the specification of the formats handled by MacHacha (incomplete but useful), so you can use it to create your own application, similar to MacHacha. I don't think these formats are closed or owned by nobody, since there isn't barely such formats. Basically, most of "formats" own a header, with some info about the original file (size, name, etc.), and the own data. In fact, if you are interested, it is very easy create your own format ;-) Anyway, if you, reader, are the legal owner of one of such formats, and dissapointed, tell me and I'll remove it from this page.

Bugs, feedback, suggestions... julifos@mac.com

MacHacha v. 4.0.1, July 29, 2011
-Experimental support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
-Removed the "machacha" format (at least temporarily).
-Removed "axeman" (hopefully nobody will miss this one).
-Now requires Intel processor and OS X 10.6 or higher.

MacHacha v. 4.0, Septembre 3, 2009
-Snow-leopardized and 64-bit-compatibilized.
-Fixed bug regarding certain file names.
-Fixed bug regarding lack of Unicode support in the Hacha file format.

MacHacha v. 3.3, February 16, 2009
-Fixed silly bug writing Hacha header (Hacha file creation).
-Fixed bug with Hacha format creation (wouldn't create more than 10 files).
-Added option to specify default location for creation of segments (preferences window).

MacHacha v. 3.2.1, June 4, 2008
-Various tweaks to make it run again under OS X 10.4, work with newer Hacha files, etc.

MacHacha v. 3.2, June 9, 2007
-Universal Binary.
-Removed UNRAR support. My favorite app for this task is now Rar Expander.

MacHacha v. 3.1, October 3, 2006
-Various minor code refinements.
-Added a new "Alphajoin" command under the File menu (joins arbitrary files alphabetically).
-Added monitorization of RAR archives containing multiple files.
-Fixed wrong association of certain applications (name ending with ".0") to MacHacha.
-Added international support for decimal separator in split window.
-Minor performance improvements.
-Added spanish localization.
-Bundled "unrar" universal binary.
-Known issue: monitorization of RAR archives will fail when file names contain ASCII 10 or 13 (CR or LF), bug associated to the unrar binary. Files will be uncompressed anyway so, when you think the extraction is done, just hit the "Cancel" button of the progress bar window.
-Known issue: you may not be able to join segments located in the root level of a volume, because of a permissions issue. Just move these segments to a well-known read-writable location, such as your desktop, and try joining them again.

MacHacha v. 3.0, January 19, 2005
-App re-writen from scratch: faster and reliable-r.
-Added new format "MacHacha", supports resource fork and meta-info.
-Added a real progress-bar with a real "cancel" function.
-Improved handling of MasterSplitter files.
-Improved performance of .BAT and .command files.
-Added support for files in non-writtable dirs (CDs, etc.).
-Documentation updated and bundled in the own app.

MacHacha v. 2.0b1, August 21, 2004
-Added a little interface: preferences and a very basic progress bar.
-Added support for Hacha Pro .exe files.
-Added preference to keep broken rar extracted archives.
-Added a preference to quit MacHacha after processing and display "Done" dialog.
-Added an option to create BAT files (autojoin capabilities for Windows).
-Added an option to create .command files (autojoin capabilities for OS X).

MacHacha v. 1.2, July 9, 2004
-Fixed minor reported gotcha with the "interface".
-Now, uncompressing RAR files will overwrite any previous existing file with the same name.
-Now you can drop several files onto MacHacha's icon.

MacHacha v. 1.1, July 3, 2004
-Added support for RAR files and segments (under request).

MacHacha v. 1.0.8, January 27, 2004
-MacHacha Pro (now MacHacha) is now freeware and open-source (under request).

MacHacha Pro v. 1.0.7, January 12, 2004
-Fixed a bad renaming behaviour with the HJSplit format.

MacHacha Pro v. 1.0.6, December 22, 2003
-Fixed a bad behaviour related to Unicode text under Panther and the registration system.

MacHacha Pro v. 1.0.5, August 1, 2003
-Added the capability to join the documents created with the newest Hacha version (2.8).
-This update is free to all registered users.

MacHacha Pro v. 1.0.4, April 19, 2003
-Fixed a silly bug when getting file size.
-Maximum chunk size has been limited to 1,95GB (2000MB), due to a limitation in HFS volumes.

MacHacha Pro v. 1.0.3, March 13, 2003
-Fixed another bug when working with large files (was not my bug this time!).

MacHacha Pro v. 1.0.2, March 12, 2003
-Fixed a general bug when working with large files.
-Several code improvements.
-The "old" format called "Hacha/MacHacha" is now simply "Hacha", since next releases will ship a new format, specially thought for Mac OS X, called "MacHacha Pro".

MacHacha Pro v. 1.0.1, March 5, 2003
-Fixed a bug when joining large files.

MacHacha Pro v. 1.0, March 2, 2003
-First public release.