(Xojo Plugin) 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.

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Dim success As Boolean
success = False

success = False

Dim zip As New Chilkat.Zip

// Open an existing ZIP archive.
success = zip.OpenZip("example.zip")
If (success = False) Then
    System.DebugLog(zip.LastErrorText)
    Return
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 Int32
numFilesUnzipped = zip.Unzip("c:/output")

If (numFilesUnzipped < 0) Then
    System.DebugLog(zip.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If

System.DebugLog("Number of files extracted = " + Str(numFilesUnzipped))

zip.CloseZip 

System.DebugLog("Files extracted successfully.")