Node.js

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.

Node.js

NODEJS_PRELUDE

function chilkatExample() {

    var success = false;

    success = false;

    var zip = new chilkat.Zip();

    // Open an existing ZIP archive.
    success = zip.OpenZip("example.zip");
    if (success == false) {
        console.log(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
    // 
    var numFilesUnzipped = zip.Unzip("c:/output");

    if (numFilesUnzipped < 0) {
        console.log(zip.LastErrorText);
        return;
    }

    console.log("Number of files extracted = " + numFilesUnzipped);

    zip.CloseZip();

    console.log("Files extracted successfully.");

}

chilkatExample();