(Visual Basic 6.0) Extract ZIP Files Without Preserving Directory Paths Using DiscardPaths

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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.

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Dim success As Long
success = 0

success = 0

Dim zip As New ChilkatZip

' Open an existing ZIP archive.
success = zip.OpenZip("example.zip")
If (success = 0) Then
    Debug.Print zip.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

' Discard stored ZIP paths during extraction.
' 
' When DiscardPaths = 1, all files are extracted
' directly into the target directory without recreating
' the ZIP directory structure.
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
' 
Dim numFilesUnzipped As Long
numFilesUnzipped = zip.Unzip("c:/output")

If (numFilesUnzipped < 0) Then
    Debug.Print zip.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

Debug.Print "Number of files extracted = " & numFilesUnzipped

zip.CloseZip 

Debug.Print "Files extracted successfully."