I finally got around to kicking the tires of my "virtual tarball" idea, which is basically an XML document that consists of HTML-renderable <ul> / <li> tags that describe the contents of an Internet-based directory structure. This allows a single URL to be used to fetch an entire set of files by using a single list of hyperlinks.
I prototyped this on the server side at cachefile.net using a REST-like approach. Basically, one would simply need to append the path of a known cached directory at cachefile.net to the following URL:
http://cachefile.net/svc/mrr/ [+ known path from root]
For example:
http://cachefile.net/svc/mrr/scripts/OpenAjax/
This would output the contents of the directory at http://cachefile.net/scripts/OpenAjax/ in XML / <li> format, with hyperlinks.
<div class="mrr">
<label>
Index of <span class="mrrbase">http://cachefile.net/scripts/OpenAjax/</span>
</label>
<ul class="mrrparent">
<li>
<a href="../">Parent</a>
</li>
</ul>
<!--
This is a mrr ("mirror") file, also a.k.a. a "virtual tarball".
For more information, see http://www.jondavis.net/blog/?tag=/virtual%20tarball
-->
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub">hub</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub/0.6">0.6</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub/0.6/release">release</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/0.6/release/OpenAjax.js">OpenAjax.js</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub/0.6/src">src</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/0.6/src/OpenAjax.js">OpenAjax.js</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub/0.6/testsrc">testsrc</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/0.6/testsrc/TestSuite.html">TestSuite.html</a>
</li>
<!-- .... -->
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/0.6/build.xml">build.xml</a>
</li>
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/0.6/index.html">index.html</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117">1.0_build117</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117/release">release</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117/release/OpenAjax.js">OpenAjax.js</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117/src">src</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117/src/OpenAjax.js">OpenAjax.js</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrdir">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117/testsrc">testsrc</a>
<ul class="mrrdirlist">
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117/testsrc/TestSuite.html">TestSuite.html</a>
</li>
<!-- ... -->
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117/build.xml">build.xml</a>
</li>
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/1.0_build117/index.html">index.html</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="hub/home.href">home.href</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="mrrfile">
<a href="home.href">home.href</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
As an added bonus, you can also get HTML wrapping of the XML file by appending the querystring, "?format=html".
http://cachefile.net/svc/mrr/scripts/OpenAjax/?format=html (click to view)
You can let your imagination take you wherever you want to go as to what you would do with such a tool from here. I'm opening the uncommented server-side source code for this. The PHP file for my proprietary implementation is here: http://www.jondavis.net/misc/cachefile_mrr_gen.txt
Unfortunately, I have a sinking feeling that this opens up security vulnerabilities. If anyone can spot any, please let me know. I already filter out "..".
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