Java

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.

Java

import com.chilkatsoft.*;

public class ChilkatExample {

  static {
    try {
        System.loadLibrary("chilkat");
    } catch (UnsatisfiedLinkError e) {
      System.err.println("Native code library failed to load.\n" + e);
      System.exit(1);
    }
  }

  public static void main(String argv[])
  {
    boolean success = false;

    CkZip zip = new CkZip();

    //  Open an existing ZIP archive.
    success = zip.OpenZip("example.zip");
    if (success == false) {
        System.out.println(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.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) {
        System.out.println(zip.lastErrorText());
        return;
        }

    System.out.println("Number of files extracted = " + numFilesUnzipped);

    zip.CloseZip();

    System.out.println("Files extracted successfully.");
  }
}