C++

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.

C++

#include <CkZip.h>

void ChilkatSample(void)
    {
    bool success = false;

    success = false;

    CkZip zip;

    // Open an existing ZIP archive.
    success = zip.OpenZip("example.zip");
    if (success == false) {
        std::cout << zip.lastErrorText() << "\r\n";
        return;
    }

    // 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.put_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
    // 
    int numFilesUnzipped = zip.Unzip("c:/output");

    if (numFilesUnzipped < 0) {
        std::cout << zip.lastErrorText() << "\r\n";
        return;
    }

    std::cout << "Number of files extracted = " << numFilesUnzipped << "\r\n";

    zip.CloseZip();

    std::cout << "Files extracted successfully." << "\r\n";
    }