B4X

Extract ZIP Files Without Preserving Directory Paths Using DiscardPaths

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This example demonstrates how to use the DiscardPaths property to extract files from a ZIP archive without recreating the stored directory structure.

When DiscardPaths is set to _TRUE_, all extracted files are written directly into the target extraction directory, and any stored ZIP path information is ignored.

This is useful when:

• Flattening ZIP contents into a single directory
• Ignoring stored subdirectory structures during extraction
• Extracting only the files themselves without recreating folders

Suppose the ZIP archive contains:

docs/readme.txt
docs/manual.pdf
images/logo.png

Normally, extracting the ZIP would create:

output/docs/readme.txt
output/docs/manual.pdf
output/images/logo.png

But when DiscardPaths is set to _TRUE_, the extracted files become:

output/readme.txt
output/manual.pdf
output/logo.png

The stored ZIP directory paths are discarded during extraction.

B4X

Dim success As Boolean = False

Dim zip As ChilkatZip
zip.Initialize("zip")

'  Open an existing ZIP archive.
success = zip.OpenZip("example.zip")
If success = False Then
    Log(zip.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If


'  Discard stored ZIP paths during extraction.
'  
'  When DiscardPaths = True, all files are extracted
'  directly into the target directory without recreating
'  the ZIP directory structure.
zip.DiscardPaths = True

'  Extract all files to the output directory.
'  
'  Even if the ZIP contains:
'  
'      docs/readme.txt
'      docs/manual.pdf
'      images/logo.png
'  
'  The extracted files become:
'  
'      c:/output/readme.txt
'      c:/output/manual.pdf
'      c:/output/logo.png
'  
Dim numFilesUnzipped As Int = zip.Unzip("c:/output")

If numFilesUnzipped < 0 Then
    Log(zip.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If


Log("Number of files extracted = " & numFilesUnzipped)

zip.CloseZip

Log("Files extracted successfully.")