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#

bool 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.");