(C#) Extract ZIP Files Without Preserving Directory Paths Using DiscardPaths

See more Zip Examples

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.

Chilkat .NET Downloads Chilkat .NET Framework Chilkat for .NET Core

bool success = false;

success = false;

Chilkat.Zip zip = new Chilkat.Zip();

// Open an existing ZIP archive.
success = zip.OpenZip("example.zip");
if (success == false) {
    Debug.WriteLine(zip.LastErrorText);
    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.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) {
    Debug.WriteLine(zip.LastErrorText);
    return;
}

Debug.WriteLine("Number of files extracted = " + Convert.ToString(numFilesUnzipped));

zip.CloseZip();

Debug.WriteLine("Files extracted successfully.");