Lua

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.

Lua

local chilkat = require("chilkat")

local zip = chilkat.Zip.new()

-- Open an existing ZIP archive.
local success = zip:open_zip("example.zip")
if not success then
    print(zip.last_error_text)
    return
end

-- 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.discard_paths = 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
--
local numFilesUnzipped = zip:unzip("c:/output")

if numFilesUnzipped < 0 then
    print(zip.last_error_text)
    return
end

print("Number of files extracted = " .. numFilesUnzipped)

zip:close_zip()

print("Files extracted successfully.")