How to decompress files in Metro style applications?

CodeProject In this blog post, I am going to demonstrate on how to use ZipArchive class in Metro style app to decompress a set of files and save the extracted files to a particular location.

Steps to decompress a set of files:

Step 1: Select the compressed file to decompress.

//Initialize file open picker FileOpenPicker fileOpenPicker = new FileOpenPicker(); fileOpenPicker.ViewMode = PickerViewMode.List; //Suggest start location fileOpenPicker.SuggestedStartLocation = PickerLocationId.ComputerFolder; //Add file type filter fileOpenPicker.FileTypeFilter.Add("*.zip"); //Opens file open picker to allow the user to select the compressed file StorageFile stgFile = await fileOpenPicker.PickSingleFileAsync();

Step 2: Select folder to extract the files

//Initialize folder picker FolderPicker saveFolder = new FolderPicker(); //Suggest start location saveFolder.SuggestedStartLocation = PickerLocationId.Desktop; //Add file type filter saveFolder.FileTypeFilter.Add("*"); //Opens folder picker to allow the user to select the folder to extract the compressed items StorageFolder storageFolder = await saveFolder.PickSingleFolderAsync();

Step 3: Use ZipArchive class to extract the files to the selected folder

//Read the stream from the compressed file Stream stream = await stgFile.OpenStreamForReadAsync(); //Copy it to Memory stream for further manipulation MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(); await stream.CopyToAsync(ms); ms.Position = 0; //Open Zip archive of the compressed file zipArchive = new ZipArchive(ms, ZipArchiveMode.Read); //For each archive entry, create file and folder accordingly and then copy the entry stream to the file. foreach (ZipArchiveEntry entry in zipArchive.Entries) { StorageFile storageFile; //Assign Selected save folder StorageFolder stgFolder = storageFolder; //Create Folder stgFolder = await CreateFolder(storageFolder, entry.FullName.Replace(entry.Name, string.Empty)); //Create File storageFile = await stgFolder.CreateFileAsync(entry.Name, CreationCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting); //Open file stream for writing Stream s = await storageFile.OpenStreamForWriteAsync(); //Copy the entry stream to the file stream await entry.Open().CopyToAsync(s); //Dispose s.Dispose(); } //Dispose zipArchive.Dispose(); stream.Dispose(); ms.Dispose();

Helper methods:

Create folder based on the file path present in Zip Archive entry

async Task<StorageFolder> CreateFolder(StorageFolder stgFolder, string path) { //Split the folder path for creating sub folder string[] locationSplit = path.Split(new char[] { '/' }); for (int i = 0; i < locationSplit.Length; i++) { //Create folder if (locationSplit[i] != string.Empty) stgFolder = await stgFolder.CreateFolderAsync(locationSplit[i], CreationCollisionOption.OpenIfExists); } return stgFolder; }

Thus the files under the selected compressed file are extracted to a particular location.

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br207928.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/BR207847

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.storage.pickers.folderpicker.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/system.runtime.interopservices.windowsruntime.windowsruntimebufferextensions%28v=vs.110%29.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh454050%28v=vs.110%29.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/system.io.compression.ziparchive%28v=vs.110%29.aspx