ChilkatZip

Stops the currently executing operation when set to True.

• Used to cancel long-running operations such as compression or extraction.
• Can be triggered from another thread.
• Automatically resets to False after the operation stops.

Specifies a base directory when adding files to the ZIP.

• This portion of the path is not included in stored ZIP entry paths.
• Useful for controlling relative paths inside the archive.

For example, to add all files under c:/abc/123/myAppDir, this property could be set to c:/abc/123, and myAppDir/* would be passed to AppendFiles.

The path stored in the ZIP would begin with myAppDir/.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Specifies the name of an executable inside a self-extracting EXE that runs automatically after extraction.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Command-line arguments passed to the AutoRun executable.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

If True, the EXE being created will automatically select and create a temporary directory for unzipping.

This property is often used together with AutoRun to create a self-extracting EXE that automatically unzips to a temporary directory and runs a setup program, such as setup.exe, without user interaction.

Note: To create a self-extracting EXE with no user interaction, set the following properties:

ExeSilentProgress = False
ExeNoInterface = True
ExeFinishNotifier = False

The default value is False.

Controls whether filename matching is case-sensitive.

• Affects methods such as EntryMatching and UnzipMatching.
• Default: False

(Windows only)

If True, clears the Windows archive attribute after files are successfully added to the ZIP.

The archive attribute indicates that a file has changed since the last backup.

The default value is False.

If True, removes the read-only attribute from extracted files.

If False, the read-only attribute remains unchanged.

The default value is False.

Sets or retrieves the global ZIP file comment.

The default value is the empty string.

If set to a file path, this property logs the LastErrorText of each Chilkat method or property call to the specified file. This logging helps identify the context and history of Chilkat calls leading up to any crash or hang, aiding in debugging.

Enabling the VerboseLogging property provides more detailed information. This property is mainly used for debugging rare instances where a Chilkat method call causes a hang or crash, which should generally not happen.

Possible causes of hangs include:

• A timeout property set to 0, indicating an infinite timeout.
• A hang occurring within an event callback in the application code.
• An internal bug in the Chilkat code causing the hang.

Password used to extract encrypted ZIP archives.

• Required to unzip encrypted entries.
• Encrypted ZIP files may still be opened without a password, but their contents cannot be extracted until the correct password is provided.

The default value is the empty string.

If True, removes all directory path information when adding files.

Only filenames are stored in the ZIP.

The default value is False.

Specifies encryption mode:

• 0 → No encryption
• 4 → WinZip-compatible AES encryption

Important: Encryption and PasswordProtect are mutually exclusive.

If PasswordProtect = True, then Encryption should be 0.

The default value is 0.

Specifies the AES encryption key length.

• Valid values: 128, 192, or 256

The default value is 128.

Password used when creating encrypted ZIP archives.

The default value is the empty string.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Default extraction directory shown in the self-extracting EXE user interface.

The default value is the empty string.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

If True, displays a completion dialog after extraction finishes.

The default value is False.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Path to an .ico file used as the EXE icon.

This feature is only available when the application creating the EXE is 32-bit.

The default value is the empty string.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

If True, runs the self-extracting EXE without displaying the main user interface.

The default value is False.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Controls whether a progress dialog is shown during extraction.

If ExeNoInterface = False, the progress bar appears within the main dialog and this property has no effect.

The default value is False.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Title displayed in the self-extracting EXE dialog.

The default value is the empty string.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Caption text displayed in the self-extracting EXE dialog.

The default value is the empty string.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Specifies a predefined extraction directory.

• Supports environment variables such as %TEMP%.
• UNC paths are not supported.

The default value is the empty string.

If True, waits for the AutoRun executable to finish before exiting.

If False, the self-extracting EXE may exit before the AutoRun executable completes.

The default value is True.

Allows for an XML config document to be used to specify all possible options for self-extracting EXEs. This property is a string containing the XML config document.

The XML should have this format:

A self-extracting EXE can be run from the command line with the -log {logFilePath} option to create a log with information for debugging.

Number of files in the ZIP, excluding directory entries.

Path of the ZIP file to be written or overwritten.

The default value is the empty string.

Indicates whether minor ZIP format problems were detected when opening the ZIP archive.

Interval, in milliseconds, between abort-check callbacks.

If set to 0, abort callbacks are disabled.

The default value is 0.

If True, files that cannot be read, written, or created due to filesystem permission errors are skipped.

If False, any access-denied error causes the ZIP operation to fail.

The default value is True.

Provides HTML-formatted information about the last called method or property. If a method call fails or behaves unexpectedly, check this property for details. Note that information is available regardless of the method call's success.

Provides plain text information about the last called method or property. If a method call fails or behaves unexpectedly, check this property for details. Note that information is available regardless of the method call's success.

Provides XML-formatted information about the last called method or property. If a method call fails or behaves unexpectedly, check this property for details. Note that information is available regardless of the method call's success.

Indicates the success or failure of the most recent method call: True means success, False means failure. This property remains unchanged by property setters or getters. This method is present to address challenges in checking for null or Nothing returns in certain programming languages. Note: This property does not apply to methods that return integer values or to boolean-returning methods where the boolean does not indicate success or failure.

Maximum last-modified timestamp for files processed during add or extract operations.

Files having modification timestamps later than this value are skipped.

Supports ISO 8601 date/time formats, including:

• YYYY-MM-DD
  Example: 2024-07-31
• YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS±HH:MM
  Example: 2024-07-31T12:34:56+02:00
• YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ
  Example: 2024-07-31T12:34:56Z

The default value is the empty string, meaning no maximum date restriction.

Prevents extraction of files larger than the specified uncompressed size.

A value of 0 means no size limit.

The default value is 0.

Minimum last-modified timestamp for files processed during add or extract operations.

Supports ISO 8601 date/time formats, including:

• YYYY-MM-DD
  Example: 2024-07-31
• YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS±HH:MM
  Example: 2024-07-31T12:34:56+02:00
• YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ
  Example: 2024-07-31T12:34:56Z

The default value is the empty string, meaning no minimum date restriction.

Total number of entries in the ZIP, including both files and directories.

Specifies the OEM code page used for ZIP filename encoding.

Defaults to the OEM code page of the current computer.

If True, existing files are overwritten during extraction.

The default value is True.

Indicates whether the ZIP uses legacy Zip 2.0 password protection.

This property is set automatically when a ZIP archive is opened by any of the Open* methods, such as OpenZip, OpenFromMemory, OpenBd, and related methods.

Important: PasswordProtect and Encryption are mutually exclusive.

If PasswordProtect = True, then Encryption should be 0.

The default value is False.

Gets or sets a path prefix that is prepended to ZIP entry paths for files appended from the local filesystem.

This is useful when you want all extracted files to appear under a specific subdirectory.

This property affects only the following methods:

• AppendFiles
• AppendFilesEx
• AddFile
• AppendOneFileOrDir

The PathPrefix value is prepended to the stored ZIP path for each appended filesystem file.

For example, set PathPrefix to subdir/ so that files are stored in the ZIP with subdir/ prepended to their paths. When extracted, the files will be placed under the subdir directory.

This property does not affect entries added entirely from memory, such as entries added using:

• AddString
• AddData
• AddBd
• AddSb

For in-memory entries, the ZIP entry path is determined solely by the filename/path argument passed to the method.

The default value is the empty string.

Controls the granularity of PercentDone event callbacks.

This property is only applicable in programming environments that support event callbacks.

The value specifies what should be considered 100% complete for progress reporting purposes.

• A value of 100 provides whole-percent progress updates.
• A value of 1000 provides tenth-percent granularity.
• For example, with a scale of 1000, a PercentDone callback value of 453 represents 45.3% complete.

Increasing this value allows for more frequent and finer-grained progress callbacks during long-running operations.

The value is automatically clamped to the range:

• Minimum: 10
• Maximum: 100000

The default value is 100.

Specifies the character encoding used to convert the decrypt password into its binary byte representation for legacy password-protected ZIP archives that use Zip 2.0 encryption.

The default value is ansi.

Other possible values include:

• cp850
• cp437
• Any supported Windows or OEM code page listed at the link below.

This property applies only to older Zip 2.0 password protection and is not used for AES-encrypted ZIP archives.

Directory used for temporary files during ZIP operations.

When overwriting an existing ZIP file, a temporary file is used to avoid corrupting the original ZIP if an error occurs.

The default value depends on the runtime environment.

Advanced options for uncommon scenarios.

• ForceZip64 → Forces ZIP64 format even when not required.

The default value is the empty string.

If set to True, then the contents of LastErrorText (or LastErrorXml, or LastErrorHtml) may contain more verbose information. The default value is False. Verbose logging should only be used for debugging. The potentially large quantity of logged information may adversely affect peformance.

Version of the component/library, such as "10.1.0"

If True, creates ZIPX archives using the most appropriate compression method for each file.

The default value is False.

Default compression algorithm used when creating ZIPX archives.

• Possible values include:
  • deflate
  • ppmd
  • lzma
  • bzip2
  • deflate64

The default value is deflate.

Adds the contents of a BinData object as a new entry in the ZIP archive.

• pathInZip specifies the filename and optional directory path stored within the ZIP.
• The bytes contained in bd become the contents of the ZIP entry.
• The entry is added to the in-memory ZIP object and is not written to disk until WriteZip, WriteZipAndClose, WriteBd, or WriteToMemory is called.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Adds an empty file or directory entry to the ZIP archive.

• If isDir = True, an empty directory entry is created.
• If isDir = False, an empty file entry is created.
• pathInZip specifies the path stored in the ZIP archive.

This method is useful when directory structure entries must exist even if no files are present.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Adds encoded binary data as a ZIP entry.

• encoding specifies how data is encoded.
• Common encodings include base64 and hex.
• The decoded binary bytes become the contents of the ZIP entry.

This method is useful when binary data already exists in textual encoded form.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Adds a file or directory from the local filesystem to the ZIP archive.

• If localPath is an absolute path and saveExtraPath = True, the stored ZIP path includes the relative directory structure.
• If saveExtraPath = False, only the filename is stored.
• If localPath is already relative, the relative path is stored as-is regardless of saveExtraPath.

This method adds a reference to the file or directory in the local filesystem. The file data is not immediately read or compressed.

The actual file contents are consumed only when a Write* method is called, such as:

• WriteZip
• WriteZipAndClose
• WriteBd
• WriteToMemory

This allows files and data entries to be accumulated in the in-memory ZIP object prior to writing the final ZIP archive.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Adds a file extension to the internal "no-compression" list.

Files having these extensions are stored without compression because they are already compressed or because compression would provide little benefit.

For example:

• .zip
• .jpg
• .png
• .gz

The extension may be specified with or without the leading dot.

Additional extensions remain active for the lifetime of the Zip object unless removed with RemoveNoCompressExtension.

Adds the contents of a StringBuilder object as a text entry in the ZIP archive.

• The text is converted to bytes using the specified charset.
• pathInZip specifies the filename stored in the ZIP.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Adds a string as a text file entry in the ZIP archive.

• The string is converted to bytes using the specified charset.
• pathInZip specifies the path stored within the ZIP archive.

This method is useful for dynamically generating text files directly in memory.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Adds one or more files matching a wildcard pattern.

• The wildcard character * matches zero or more characters.
• If recurse = True, subdirectories are processed recursively.
• If recurse = False, only the current directory is searched.

For example:

AppendFiles("c:/temp/*.txt", False)

This method only updates the in-memory ZIP object. The ZIP file itself is not written until a Write* method is called.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Advanced version of AppendFiles with additional filtering and path options.

• saveExtraPath controls whether the extra leading path information from the filePattern is preserved in the ZIP.
• archiveOnly applies only on Windows and limits processing to files having the archive attribute set.
• includeHidden controls whether hidden files are included.
• includeSystem controls whether files with the System attribute are included.

This method adds references to files in the in-memory ZIP object. No ZIP file is written until a Write* method is called.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Note: This method is currently not working and will be fixed in v11.5.0

Adds all entries from another existing ZIP archive into the current ZIP object.

The zipPath argument specifies the path of a ZIP file located in the local filesystem.

All entries from the specified ZIP archive are appended to the current in-memory ZIP object.

The ZIP archive itself is not rewritten until a Write* method is called.

This method is useful for merging the contents of multiple ZIP archives into a single ZIP.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Closes the currently open ZIP archive and clears all entries from the Zip object.

This method has the same effect as calling NewZip without specifying a filename.

Removes a ZIP entry from the current ZIP object.

The ZIP file itself is not rewritten until a Write* method is called.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Retrieves the ZIP entry at the specified zero-based index.

• The first entry is at index 0.
• The matching entry is returned in the supplied ZipEntry object.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Finds a ZIP entry by its unique EntryID.

The matching entry is returned in the supplied ZipEntry object.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Finds the first ZIP entry whose stored path matches a wildcard pattern.

• The wildcard character * matches zero or more characters.
• The comparison is performed against the full stored ZIP path.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Finds a ZIP entry whose stored path exactly matches pathInZip.

The matching entry is returned in the supplied ZipEntry object.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Adds a directory name to the exclusion list used by recursive append operations.

• All directories having the specified name are skipped.
• The comparison is case-insensitive.
• Call multiple times to exclude multiple directory names.

This affects methods such as AppendFiles and AppendFilesEx.

Extracts files from a Chilkat-created self-extracting EXE.

• Files are extracted into dirPath.
• Subdirectories are automatically created as needed.
• If the EXE is encrypted, DecryptPassword must be set before extraction.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Returns the ZIP directory structure as an XML document.

The returned XML contains information about the entries currently contained within the ZIP archive, including files and directories.

This method is useful for inspecting ZIP contents without extracting files.

Returns the XML document as a string.

Returns Null on failure

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Returns the value of a configuration parameter embedded within a self-extracting EXE.

The name argument should be one of the XML tag names described in the ExeXmlConfig property documentation.

For example:

• MainTitle
• MainCaption
• SetupExe

Returns the parameter value as a string.

Returns Null on failure

Returns the largest uncompressed file size contained within the ZIP archive.

The size is returned as a string rather than an integer because the value may exceed the range of a 32-bit integer.

This method is useful when:

• Checking for extremely large files before extraction
• Estimating required disk space
• Detecting unusually large compressed entries

Returns the size as a decimal string.

Returns Null on failure

Checks whether a file extension is contained in the internal "no-compression" extension list.

Files having extensions in this list are stored without compression because they are typically already compressed.

The extension may be specified with or without the leading dot.

For example, both of the following are valid:

• .jpg
• jpg

Returns True if the extension exists in the list, otherwise returns False.

Checks whether a ZIP archive uses legacy Zip 2.0 password protection.

The zipPath argument specifies the path of a ZIP file in the local filesystem.

This method checks only for traditional Zip 2.0 password protection.

Returns True if the ZIP archive is password protected, otherwise returns False.

Initializes a new empty ZIP archive.

• If another ZIP archive is currently open, it is closed.
• All existing in-memory ZIP entries are discarded.
• The FileName property is set to zipPath.

No ZIP file is actually created until a Write* method is called.

This method resets the Zip object to a clean empty state.

Opens a ZIP archive contained entirely within a BinData object.

This method allows ZIP archives to be processed entirely in memory without requiring a filesystem file.

When a ZIP archive is opened:

• PasswordProtect is automatically set if legacy Zip 2.0 encryption is detected.
• Encryption is automatically set if strong encryption is detected.
• A value of 4 for Encryption indicates WinZip-compatible AES encryption.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

(Windows only)

Opens a ZIP archive embedded as a resource within a Windows executable.

• exeFilename specifies the EXE file path.
• resourceName specifies the embedded resource name containing the ZIP data.

This method is useful when ZIP archives are packaged within Windows applications.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Opens a ZIP archive from the local filesystem.

The zipPath argument specifies the path of the ZIP file to open.

Encrypted ZIP archives may be opened without providing a password, but encrypted entries cannot be extracted until the correct password is provided using DecryptPassword.

When the ZIP archive is opened:

• PasswordProtect is automatically set if legacy Zip 2.0 encryption is detected.
• Encryption is automatically set if strong encryption is detected.
• Encryption = 4 indicates WinZip-compatible AES encryption.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Efficiently appends additional entries to an existing ZIP archive.

The zipPath argument specifies the path of an existing ZIP archive in the local filesystem.

This method avoids rewriting existing entries.

• Existing ZIP entries remain unchanged.
• New entries are appended to the end of the ZIP archive.
• The ZIP central directory is updated accordingly.

This method is typically faster than rebuilding the entire ZIP archive.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Removes a file extension from the internal "no-compression" extension list.

After removal, files having this extension may be compressed normally.

The extension may be specified with or without the leading dot.

Sets the compression level for all file and data entries currently contained within the ZIP object.

• 0 → No compression
• 9 → Maximum compression

The default compression level is 6.

Important: This method should be called after files or data entries have already been added to the ZIP object.

The compression level cannot be changed for mapped entries originating from an already-open ZIP archive.

Specifies a collection of wildcard exclusion patterns used when adding files to the ZIP archive.

Each pattern may use the wildcard character * to match zero or more characters.

Files matching any exclusion pattern are skipped.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Sets a configuration parameter embedded within a self-extracting EXE created by WriteExe or WriteExe2.

The paramName should be one of the XML configuration tag names described in the ExeXmlConfig property documentation.

For example:

SetExeConfigParam("MainUnzipBtn","Extract")

This changes the text displayed on the self-extractor's main unzip button.

Extracts all files and directories from the ZIP archive.

• dirPath specifies the destination directory.
• Subdirectories are automatically created as needed.

Returns the number of files extracted.

Returns -1 if a failure occurs.

Extracts all files into a single directory.

All directory path information stored within the ZIP archive is ignored.

If multiple files have the same filename, later extracted files overwrite earlier ones.

Returns the number of files extracted, or -1 on failure.

Extracts only entries whose stored paths match a wildcard pattern.

• The wildcard character * matches zero or more characters.
• If no wildcard is used, an exact filename match is required.

Subdirectories are automatically created as needed.

Returns the number of files extracted, or -1 on failure.

Extracts matching entries into a single directory while ignoring all stored ZIP path information.

Matching behavior is identical to UnzipMatching.

If duplicate filenames occur, later extracted files overwrite earlier ones.

Returns the number of files extracted, or -1 on failure.

Extracts only files that:

• Do not already exist
• Or have older modification timestamps than the ZIP entry

Subdirectories are automatically created as needed.

Returns the number of files extracted, or -1 on failure.

Verifies that the current DecryptPassword value is correct for the currently opened ZIP archive.

This method allows password validation before attempting extraction.

Returns True if the password is valid, otherwise returns False.

Writes the ZIP archive to a BinData object instead of a filesystem file.

The generated ZIP archive exists entirely in memory.

The ZIP data written by this method may later be opened using OpenBd.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

(Windows only, for creating self-extracting EXE's)

Creates a Windows self-extracting executable (EXE).

The generated EXE contains both the extraction logic and the ZIP archive data.

There are no limitations on:

• Total ZIP size
• Individual file size
• Number of files

The generated EXE supports the following command-line arguments:

• -log logFileName
• -unzipDir unzipDirectoryPath
• -pwd password
• -ap autoRunParams

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Saves the Zip to a file and implictly re-opens it so further operations can continue. Use WriteZipAndClose to write and close the Zip. There is no limitation on the size of files that may be contained within a .zip, the total number of files in a .zip, or the total size of a .zip. If necessary, WriteZip will use the ZIP64 file format extensions when 4GB or file count limitations of the old zip file format are exceeded.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Saves the Zip to a file and closes it. On return, the Zip object will be in the state as if NewZip had been called. There is no limitation on the size of files that may be contained within a .zip, the total number of files in a .zip, or the total size of a .zip. If necessary, WriteZip will use the ZIP64 file format extensions when 4GB or file count limitations of the old zip file format are exceeded.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Enables a method call to be aborted by triggering the AbortCheck event at intervals defined by the HeartbeatMs property. If HeartbeatMs is set to its default value of 0, no events will occur. For instance, set HeartbeatMs to 200 to trigger 5 AbortCheck events per second.

Example (object initialized with zip.Initialize("evt")):

zip.HeartbeatMs = 250   ' fire evt_AbortCheck 4 times per second

Sub evt_AbortCheck As Boolean
    ' Called every HeartbeatMs milliseconds while a Chilkat method is running.
    Return False   ' Return True to abort the method in progress
End Sub

This provides the percentage completion for any method involving network communications or time-consuming processing, assuming the progress can be measured as a percentage. This event is triggered only when it's possible and logical to express the operation's progress as a percentage. The pctDone argument will range from 1 to 100. For methods that finish quickly, the number of PercentDone callbacks may vary, but the final callback will have pctDone equal to 100. For longer operations, callbacks will not exceed one per percentage point (e.g., 1, 2, 3, ..., 98, 99, 100).

The PercentDone callback also acts as an AbortCheck event. For fast methods where PercentDone fires, an AbortCheck event may not trigger since the PercentDone callback already provides an opportunity to abort. For longer operations, where time between PercentDone callbacks is extended, AbortCheck callbacks enable more responsive operation termination.

To abort the operation, set the abort output argument to True. This will cause the method to terminate and return a failure status or corresponding failure value.

Example (object initialized with zip.Initialize("evt")):

Sub evt_PercentDone (PctDone As Int) As Boolean
    ' PctDone ranges from 1 to 100.
    Log("Percent done: " & PctDone)
    Return False   ' Return True to abort the method in progress
End Sub

This event callback provides tag name/value pairs that detail what occurs during a method call. To discover existing tag names, create code to handle the event, emit the pairs, and review them. Most tag names are self-explanatory.

Note: Some Chilkat methods don't fire any ProgressInfo events.

Example (object initialized with zip.Initialize("evt")):

Sub evt_ProgressInfo (Name As String, Value As String)
    Log(Name & ": " & Value)
End Sub