(SQL Server) 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 1, 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 1, the extracted files become:

output/readme.txt
output/manual.pdf
output/logo.png

The stored ZIP directory paths are discarded during extraction.

Chilkat ActiveX Downloads ActiveX for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows

-- Important: See this note about string length limitations for strings returned by sp_OAMethod calls.
--
CREATE PROCEDURE ChilkatSample
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @hr int
    -- Important: Do not use nvarchar(max).  See the warning about using nvarchar(max).
    DECLARE @sTmp0 nvarchar(4000)
    DECLARE @success int
    SELECT @success = 0

    SELECT @success = 0

    DECLARE @zip int
    EXEC @hr = sp_OACreate 'Chilkat.Zip', @zip OUT
    IF @hr <> 0
    BEGIN
        PRINT 'Failed to create ActiveX component'
        RETURN
    END

    -- Open an existing ZIP archive.
    EXEC sp_OAMethod @zip, 'OpenZip', @success OUT, 'example.zip'
    IF @success = 0
      BEGIN
        EXEC sp_OAGetProperty @zip, 'LastErrorText', @sTmp0 OUT
        PRINT @sTmp0
        EXEC @hr = sp_OADestroy @zip
        RETURN
      END

    -- Discard stored ZIP paths during extraction.
    -- 
    -- When DiscardPaths = 1, all files are extracted
    -- directly into the target directory without recreating
    -- the ZIP directory structure.
    EXEC sp_OASetProperty @zip, 'DiscardPaths', 1

    -- 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
    -- 
    DECLARE @numFilesUnzipped int
    EXEC sp_OAMethod @zip, 'Unzip', @numFilesUnzipped OUT, 'c:/output'

    IF @numFilesUnzipped < 0
      BEGIN
        EXEC sp_OAGetProperty @zip, 'LastErrorText', @sTmp0 OUT
        PRINT @sTmp0
        EXEC @hr = sp_OADestroy @zip
        RETURN
      END


    PRINT 'Number of files extracted = ' + @numFilesUnzipped

    EXEC sp_OAMethod @zip, 'CloseZip', NULL


    PRINT 'Files extracted successfully.'

    EXEC @hr = sp_OADestroy @zip


END
GO