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Add a Common Root Directory to ZIP Entries Using PathPrefix

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This example demonstrates how to use the PathPrefix property to prepend a common directory path to all entries added to a ZIP archive.

The PathPrefix value is prepended to the stored ZIP paths for subsequently added entries.

This is useful when:

  • Creating ZIP archives that extract beneath a single root directory
  • Packaging applications or projects into a named top-level folder
  • Avoiding extraction directly into the current directory
  • Organizing ZIP contents beneath a common parent directory

Suppose the local filesystem contains:

c:/MyProject/src/main.cpp
c:/MyProject/src/util.cpp
c:/MyProject/docs/readme.txt

And suppose the following code is executed:

zip.PathPrefix = "MyProject/";

Then the ZIP archive will contain:

MyProject/src/main.cpp
MyProject/src/util.cpp
MyProject/docs/readme.txt

Without a PathPrefix, the ZIP archive would instead contain:

src/main.cpp
src/util.cpp
docs/readme.txt

The PathPrefix is applied only to entries added after the property is set.

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PHP Extension
<?php

include("chilkat.php");

$success = false;

$zip = new CkZip();

// Create a new ZIP archive.
$success = $zip->NewZip('MyProject.zip');
if ($success == false) {
    print $zip->lastErrorText() . "\n";
    exit;
}

// Prepend "MyProject/" to all subsequently added ZIP entries.
// 
// This causes all files to extract beneath a top-level
// directory named "MyProject".
$zip->put_PathPrefix('MyProject/');

// Recursively add project files.
// 
// Because saveExtraPath = false, the stored ZIP paths
// will normally begin with:
// 
//     src/
//     docs/
// 
// But because PathPrefix = "MyProject/",
// the final ZIP paths become:
// 
//     MyProject/src/
//     MyProject/docs/
// 
$recurse = true;
$success = $zip->AppendFiles('c:/MyProject/*',$recurse);

if ($success == false) {
    print $zip->lastErrorText() . "\n";
    exit;
}

// Write the ZIP archive and close it.
$success = $zip->WriteZipAndClose();
if ($success == false) {
    print $zip->lastErrorText() . "\n";
    exit;
}

print 'ZIP archive created successfully.' . "\n";

?>