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Xbase++

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.

Chilkat Xbase++ Downloads

Xbase++
LOCAL nSuccess
LOCAL oZip
LOCAL nNumFilesUnzipped

nSuccess := 0

oZip := CreateObject("Chilkat.Zip")

//  Open an existing ZIP archive.
nSuccess := oZip:OpenZip("example.zip")
IF (nSuccess == 0)
    ? oZip:LastErrorText
    oZip:destroy()
    RETURN
ENDIF

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

IF (nNumFilesUnzipped < 0)
    ? oZip:LastErrorText
    oZip:destroy()
    RETURN
ENDIF

? "Number of files extracted = " + Str(nNumFilesUnzipped)

oZip:CloseZip()

? "Files extracted successfully."

oZip:destroy()