First of all, let me say I'm aware of PackageManager. But as best as I can tell that app is for creating an application. The type of package I want to create will simply hold files. VMWare uses these as do some DVD creators.
You'll need to be more specific especially if a zip archive is insufficient. What are you trying to accomplish? What kind of files are you working with? There are some other compression formats available to you beyond zip (tar, gunzip, bunzip2) if an archive is needed and zip doesn't work.
How to Programmatically Create a Mac OS X Package (from the command-line or a shell script).
Note that any lines ending with a backslash should be one line; they've been broken here for a narrower display width.
Set up the files you want to package in a folder called dstroot:
% mkdir ./dstroot
% mkdir -p ./dstroot/usr/local/bin/ \
dstroot/usr/local/share/man/man1/
% install -m 755 myprog ./dstroot/usr/local/bin/
% install -m 644 myprog.1 \
./dstroot/usr/local/share/man/man1/
Create a package info file (this has nothing to do with Fink info files). Either copy one from another .pkg to use as a template, or see this pkg info file from osxutils.
Make the package:
% find dstroot -name .DS_Store -delete
% sudo chown -R root:staff dstroot
% package dstroot mypackage-0.1.info -d . -ignoreDSStore
% rm -f 1
% install -m 644 README.txt \
mypackage-0.1.pkg/Contents/Resources/ReadMe.txt
% install -m 644 LICENSE.txt \
mypackage-0.1.pkg/Contents/Resources/License.txt
% sudo chown -R root:staff \
mypackage-0.1.pkg/Contents/Resource
% tar -h mypackage-0.1.pkg -cf mypackage-0.1.pkg.tar
% gzip -9 mypackage-0.1.pkg.tar
See an example Makefile from the osxutils package which builds a .pkg from the command line at SourceForge.
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