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VB.NET

Exclude Multiple Directories When Adding Files to a ZIP

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This example demonstrates how to use the ExcludeDir method to exclude specific directory names when recursively adding files to a ZIP archive.

The ExcludeDir method excludes directories by name. Any directory matching an excluded name is skipped entirely, including all files and subdirectories beneath it.

This is useful for excluding directories such as:

  • .git
  • node_modules
  • bin
  • obj
  • Temporary or cache directories

Call ExcludeDir once for each directory name to exclude.

Suppose the local filesystem contains:

c:/project/src/main.cpp
c:/project/src/util.cpp
c:/project/bin/app.exe
c:/project/obj/main.obj
c:/project/.git/config
c:/project/node_modules/library/index.js

After excluding bin, obj, .git, and node_modules, only the files beneath src are added to the ZIP archive.

The resulting ZIP archive contains:

project/src/main.cpp
project/src/util.cpp

Chilkat VB.NET Downloads

VB.NET
Dim success As Boolean = False

success = False

Dim zip As New Chilkat.Zip

success = zip.NewZip("project.zip")
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(zip.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


' Exclude several directory names.
' 
' Any directory matching one of these names will be skipped
' during recursive file appending.
zip.ExcludeDir("bin")
zip.ExcludeDir("obj")
zip.ExcludeDir(".git")
zip.ExcludeDir("node_modules")

' Recursively append all files beneath c:/project.
' 
' Because saveExtraPath = True, the ZIP paths will
' include "project/" as the leading directory.
Dim recurse As Boolean = True
Dim saveExtraPath As Boolean = True
Dim archiveOnly As Boolean = False
Dim includeHidden As Boolean = True
Dim includeSystem As Boolean = False

success = zip.AppendFilesEx("c:/project",recurse,saveExtraPath,archiveOnly,includeHidden,includeSystem)
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(zip.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


' Write the ZIP archive.
success = zip.WriteZipAndClose()
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(zip.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


Debug.WriteLine("ZIP archive created successfully.")