Dart

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.

Dart

import 'package:chilkat/chilkat.dart';

void main() {
  final zip = CkZip();

  // Open an existing ZIP archive.
  try {
    zip.openZip('example.zip');
  } on ChilkatException catch (e) {
    print(e.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
  // 
  final numFilesUnzipped = zip.unzip('c:/output');

  if (numFilesUnzipped < 0) {
    print(zip.lastErrorText);
    return;
  }

  print('Number of files extracted = $numFilesUnzipped');

  zip.closeZip();

  print('Files extracted successfully.');
}