VB.NET

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 _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.

VB.NET

Dim success As Boolean = False

success = False

Dim zip As New Chilkat.Zip

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


' 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
' 
Dim numFilesUnzipped As Integer = zip.Unzip("c:/output")

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


Debug.WriteLine("Number of files extracted = " & numFilesUnzipped)

zip.CloseZip()

Debug.WriteLine("Files extracted successfully.")