Zip folder in C#

Question

What is an example (simple code) of how to zip a folder in C#?

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Update:

I do not see namespace ICSharpCode. I downloaded ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.dll but I do not know where to copy that DLL file. What do I need to do to see this namespace?

And do you have link for that MSDN example for compress folder, because I read all MSDN but I couldn't find anything.

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OK, but I need next information.

Where should I copy ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.dll to see that namespace in Visual Studio?

Answer 1

This answer changes with .NET 4.5. Creating a zip file becomes incredibly easy. No third-party libraries will be required.

string startPath = @"c:\example\start";
string zipPath = @"c:\example\result.zip";
string extractPath = @"c:\example\extract";

ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory(startPath, zipPath);
ZipFile.ExtractToDirectory(zipPath, extractPath);

Answer 2

There's nothing in the BCL to do this for you, but there are two great libraries for .NET which do support the functionality.

• SharpZipLib
• DotNetZip

I've used both and can say that the two are very complete and have well-designed APIs, so it's mainly a matter of personal preference.

I'm not sure whether they explicitly support adding Folders rather than just individual files to zip files, but it should be quite easy to create something that recursively iterated over a directory and its sub-directories using the DirectoryInfo and FileInfo classes.

Answer 3

From the DotNetZip help file, http://dotnetzip.codeplex.com/releases/

using (ZipFile zip = new ZipFile())
{
   zip.UseUnicodeAsNecessary= true;  // utf-8
   zip.AddDirectory(@"MyDocuments\ProjectX");
   zip.Comment = "This zip was created at " + System.DateTime.Now.ToString("G") ; 
   zip.Save(pathToSaveZipFile);
}

Answer 4

There is a ZipPackage class in the System.IO.Packaging namespace which is built into .NET 3, 3.5, and 4.0.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.packaging.zippackage.aspx

Here is an example how to use it. http://www.codeproject.com/KB/files/ZipUnZipTool.aspx?display=Print

Answer 5

In .NET 4.5 the ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory(startPath, zipPath); method does not cover a scenario where you wish to zip a number of files and sub-folders without having to put them within a folder. This is valid when you wish the unzip to put the files directly within the current folder.

This code worked for me:

public static class FileExtensions
{
    public static IEnumerable<FileSystemInfo> AllFilesAndFolders(this DirectoryInfo dir)
    {
        foreach (var f in dir.GetFiles())
            yield return f;
        foreach (var d in dir.GetDirectories())
        {
            yield return d;
            foreach (var o in AllFilesAndFolders(d))
                yield return o;
        }
    }
}

void Test()
{
    DirectoryInfo from = new DirectoryInfo(@"C:\Test");
    using (FileStream zipToOpen = new FileStream(@"Test.zip", FileMode.Create))
    {
        using (ZipArchive archive = new ZipArchive(zipToOpen, ZipArchiveMode.Create))
        {
            foreach (FileInfo file in from.AllFilesAndFolders().Where(o => o is FileInfo).Cast<FileInfo>())
            {
                var relPath = file.FullName.Substring(from.FullName.Length+1);
                ZipArchiveEntry readmeEntry = archive.CreateEntryFromFile(file.FullName, relPath);
            }
        }
    }
}

Folders don't need to be "created" in the zip-archive. The second parameter "entryName" in CreateEntryFromFile should be a relative path, and when unpacking the zip-file the directories of the relative paths will be detected and created.

Answer 6

There's an article over on MSDN that has a sample application for zipping and unzipping files and folders purely in C#. I've been using some of the classes in that successfully for a long time. The code is released under the Microsoft Permissive License, if you need to know that sort of thing.

EDIT: Thanks to Cheeso for pointing out that I'm a bit behind the times. The MSDN example I pointed to is in fact using DotNetZip and is really very fully-featured these days. Based on my experience of a previous version of this I'd happily recommend it.

SharpZipLib is also quite a mature library and is highly rated by people, and is available under the GPL license. It really depends on your zipping needs and how you view the license terms for each of them.

Rich