(Unicode C++) Compress a File to Gzip with Custom Metadata

See more Gzip Examples

This example demonstrates how to use the CompressFile method to create a Gzip (.gz) file while customizing the metadata embedded in the Gzip header.

Before compression, several properties are set:

• Comment: Adds a descriptive comment to the Gzip file.
• Filename: Specifies the filename to embed in the Gzip data, which may be used by extraction tools as the default output name.
• CompressionLevel: Controls the tradeoff between compression ratio and speed (set to maximum in this example).
• LastModStr: Sets the last-modified timestamp using an RFC 822 formatted date string.

After setting these properties, the input file is compressed and written to a .gz file. This approach allows you to embed meaningful metadata along with the compressed data.

Chilkat C/C++ Library Downloads
MS Visual C/C++ C++ Builder Linux C/C++ Alpine Linux C/C++	MacOS C/C++ iOS C/C++ Android C/C++ MinGW C/C++

#include <CkGzipW.h>

void ChilkatSample(void)
    {
    bool success = false;

    // This example demonstrates how to compress a file to Gzip format
    // while setting custom metadata such as comment, filename,
    // compression level, and last-modified date.

    CkGzipW gzip;

    // Set custom Gzip properties:
    gzip.put_Comment(L"Example Gzip file created with Chilkat");
    gzip.put_Filename(L"custom_name.txt");
    gzip.put_CompressionLevel(9);
    gzip.put_LastModStr(L"Wed, 1 Apr 2025 12:45:26 -0500");

    // The file to be compressed:
    const wchar_t *inputFile = L"example.txt";
    const wchar_t *outputFile = L"example.txt.gz";

    // Compress the file:
    success = gzip.CompressFile(inputFile,outputFile);
    if (success == false) {
        wprintf(L"%s\n",gzip.lastErrorText());
        return;
    }

    wprintf(L"Compression successful.\n");
    wprintf(L"Gzip file created: %s\n",outputFile);
    }