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Most Unix variants support FUSE, which allows programs to define new filesystem types. There are several FUSE filesystems that expose archive contents as a directory tree. This way any application can see archive contents as ordinary files transparently. See Can I store and work with a directory in compressed form?

For example, with avfs, you get read-only access:

mountavfs
cd ~/.avfs$PWD
vim foo.tgz\#/file-within-foo

With archivemount, you need to mount each archive explicitly, but you get read-write access.

mkdir foo.d
archivemount foo.tgz foo.d
vim foo.d/file-within-foo
fusermount -u foo.d; rmdir foo.d

Most Unix variants support FUSE, which allows programs to define new filesystem types. There are several FUSE filesystems that expose archive contents as a directory tree. This way any application can see archive contents as ordinary files transparently (see e.g. here).

• For example, with avfs, you get read-only access:

  mountavfs
  cd ~/.avfs$PWD
  vim foo.tgz\#/file-within-foo
  

• With archivemount, you need to mount each archive explicitly, but you get read-write access.

  mkdir foo.d
  archivemount foo.tgz foo.d
  vim foo.d/file-within-foo
  fusermount -u foo.d; rmdir foo.d
  

Most Unix variants support FUSE, which allows programs to define new filesystem types. There are several FUSE filesystems that expose archive contents as a directory tree. This way any application can see archive contents as ordinary files transparently. See Can I store and work with a directory in compressed form?

For example, with avfs, you get read-only access:

mountavfs
cd ~/.avfs$PWD
vim foo.tgz\#/file-within-foo

With archivemount, you need to mount each archive explicitly, but you get read-write access.

mkdir foo.d
archivemount foo.tgz foo.d
vim foo.d/file-within-foo
fusermount -u foo.d; rmdir foo.d

Most Unix variants support FUSE, which allows programs to define new filesystem types. There are several FUSE filesystems that expose archive contents as a directory tree. This way any application can see archive contents as ordinary files transparently. See Can I store and work with a directory in compressed form?

For example, with avfs, you get read-only access:

mountavfs
cd ~/.avfs$PWD
vim foo.tgz\#/file-within-foo

With archivemount, you need to mount each archive explicitly, but you get read-write access.

mkdir foo.d
archivemount foo.tgz foo.d
vim foo.d/file-within-foo
fusermount -u foo.d; rmdir foo.d

Most Unix variants support FUSE, which allows programs to define new filesystem types. There are several FUSE filesystems that expose archive contents as a directory tree. This way any application can see archive contents as ordinary files transparently. See Can I store and work with a directory in compressed form?

For example, with avfs, you get read-only access:

mountavfs
cd ~/.avfs$PWD
vim foo.tgz\#/file-within-foo

With archivemount, you need to mount each archive explicitly, but you get read-write access.

mkdir foo.d
archivemount foo.tgz foo.d
vim foo.d/file-within-foo
fusermount -u foo.d; rmdir foo.d

Most Unix variants support FUSE, which allows programs to define new filesystem types. There are several FUSE filesystems that expose archive contents as a directory tree. This way any application can see archive contents as ordinary files transparently. See Can I store and work with a directory in compressed form?

For example, with avfs, you get read-only access:

mountavfs
cd ~/.avfs$PWD
vim foo.tgz\#/file-within-foo

With archivemount, you need to mount each archive explicitly, but you get read-write access.

mkdir foo.d
archivemount foo.tgz foo.d
vim foo.d/file-within-foo
fusermount -u foo.d; rmdir foo.d