Awesome

A portable (OSX/Linux/Windows/Android/iOS), simple zip library written in C

This is done by hacking awesome miniz library and layering functions on top of the miniz v3.0.2 API.

The Idea

<img src="zip.png" name="zip" /> ... Some day, I was looking for zip library written in C for my project, but I could not find anything simple enough and lightweight. Everything what I tried required 'crazy mental gymnastics' to integrate or had some limitations or was too heavy. I hate frameworks, factories and adding new dependencies. If I must to install all those dependencies and link new library, I'm getting almost sick. I wanted something powerful and small enough, so I could add just a few files and compile them into my project. And finally I found miniz. Miniz is a lossless, high performance data compression library in a single source file. I only needed simple interface to append buffers or files to the current zip-entry. Thanks to this feature I'm able to merge many files/buffers and compress them on-the-fly.

It was the reason, why I decided to write zip module on top of the miniz. It required a little bit hacking and wrapping some functions, but I kept simplicity. So, you can grab these 3 files and compile them into your project. I hope that interface is also extremely simple, so you will not have any problems to understand it.

Examples

Create a new zip archive with default compression level.

struct zip_t *zip = zip_open("foo.zip", ZIP_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION_LEVEL, 'w');
{
    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-1.txt");
    {
        const char *buf = "Some data here...\0";
        zip_entry_write(zip, buf, strlen(buf));
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);

    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-2.txt");
    {
        // merge 3 files into one entry and compress them on-the-fly.
        zip_entry_fwrite(zip, "foo-2.1.txt");
        zip_entry_fwrite(zip, "foo-2.2.txt");
        zip_entry_fwrite(zip, "foo-2.3.txt");
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);
}
zip_close(zip);

Append to the existing zip archive.

struct zip_t *zip = zip_open("foo.zip", ZIP_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION_LEVEL, 'a');
{
    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-3.txt");
    {
        const char *buf = "Append some data here...\0";
        zip_entry_write(zip, buf, strlen(buf));
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);
}
zip_close(zip);

Extract a zip archive into a folder.

int on_extract_entry(const char *filename, void *arg) {
    static int i = 0;
    int n = *(int *)arg;
    printf("Extracted: %s (%d of %d)\n", filename, ++i, n);

    return 0;
}

// From "foo.zip" on disk
int arg = 2;
zip_extract("foo.zip", "/tmp", on_extract_entry, &arg);

// Or from memory
arg = 2;
zip_stream_extract(zipstream, zipstreamsize, "/tmp", on_extract_entry, &arg);

Extract a zip entry into memory.

void *buf = NULL;
size_t bufsize;

struct zip_t *zip = zip_open("foo.zip", 0, 'r');
{
    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-1.txt");
    {
        zip_entry_read(zip, &buf, &bufsize);
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);
}
zip_close(zip);

free(buf);

Extract a zip entry into memory (no internal allocation).

unsigned char *buf;
size_t bufsize;

struct zip_t *zip = zip_open("foo.zip", 0, 'r');
{
    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-1.txt");
    {
        bufsize = zip_entry_size(zip);
        buf = calloc(sizeof(unsigned char), bufsize);

        zip_entry_noallocread(zip, (void *)buf, bufsize);
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);
}
zip_close(zip);

free(buf);

Extract a zip entry into memory using callback.

struct buffer_t {
    char *data;
    size_t size;
};

static size_t on_extract(void *arg, unsigned long long offset, const void *data, size_t size) {
    struct buffer_t *buf = (struct buffer_t *)arg;
    buf->data = realloc(buf->data, buf->size + size + 1);
    assert(NULL != buf->data);

    memcpy(&(buf->data[buf->size]), data, size);
    buf->size += size;
    buf->data[buf->size] = 0;

    return size;
}

struct buffer_t buf = {0};
struct zip_t *zip = zip_open("foo.zip", 0, 'r');
{
    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-1.txt");
    {
        zip_entry_extract(zip, on_extract, &buf);
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);
}
zip_close(zip);

free(buf.data);

Extract a zip entry into a file.

struct zip_t *zip = zip_open("foo.zip", 0, 'r');
{
    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-2.txt");
    {
        zip_entry_fread(zip, "foo-2.txt");
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);
}
zip_close(zip);

Create a new zip archive in memory (stream API).

char *outbuf = NULL;
size_t outbufsize = 0;

const char *inbuf = "Append some data here...\0";
struct zip_t *zip = zip_stream_open(NULL, 0, ZIP_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION_LEVEL, 'w');
{
    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-1.txt");
    {
        zip_entry_write(zip, inbuf, strlen(inbuf));
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);

    /* copy compressed stream into outbuf */
    zip_stream_copy(zip, (void **)&outbuf, &outbufsize);
}
zip_stream_close(zip);

free(outbuf);

Extract a zip entry into a memory (stream API).

char *buf = NULL;
size_t bufsize = 0;

struct zip_t *zip = zip_stream_open(zipstream, zipstreamsize, 0, 'r');
{
    zip_entry_open(zip, "foo-1.txt");
    {
        zip_entry_read(zip, (void **)&buf, &bufsize);
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);
}
zip_stream_close(zip);

free(buf);

List of all zip entries

struct zip_t *zip = zip_open("foo.zip", 0, 'r');
int i, n = zip_entries_total(zip);
for (i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
    zip_entry_openbyindex(zip, i);
    {
        const char *name = zip_entry_name(zip);
        int isdir = zip_entry_isdir(zip);
        unsigned long long size = zip_entry_size(zip);
        unsigned int crc32 = zip_entry_crc32(zip);
    }
    zip_entry_close(zip);
}
zip_close(zip);

Compress folder (recursively)

void zip_walk(struct zip_t *zip, const char *path) {
    DIR *dir;
    struct dirent *entry;
    char fullpath[MAX_PATH];
    struct stat s;

    memset(fullpath, 0, MAX_PATH);
    dir = opendir(path);
    assert(dir);

    while ((entry = readdir(dir))) {
      // skip "." and ".."
      if (!strcmp(entry->d_name, ".\0") || !strcmp(entry->d_name, "..\0"))
        continue;

      snprintf(fullpath, sizeof(fullpath), "%s/%s", path, entry->d_name);
      stat(fullpath, &s);
      if (S_ISDIR(s.st_mode))
        zip_walk(zip, fullpath);
      else {
        zip_entry_open(zip, fullpath);
        zip_entry_fwrite(zip, fullpath);
        zip_entry_close(zip);
      }
    }

    closedir(dir);
}

Delete zip archive entries.

char *entries[] = {"unused.txt", "remove.ini", "delete.me"};
// size_t indices[] = {0, 1, 2};

struct zip_t *zip = zip_open("foo.zip", 0, 'd');
{
    zip_entries_delete(zip, entries, 3);

    // you can also delete by index, instead of by name
    // zip_entries_deletebyindex(zip, indices, 3);
}
zip_close(zip);

Bindings

Compile zip library as a dynamic library.

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=true ..
$ cmake --build .

Go (cgo)

Third party binding: kuba--/c-go-zip

package main

/*
#cgo CFLAGS: -I../src
#cgo LDFLAGS: -L. -lzip
#include <zip.h>
*/
import "C"
import "unsafe"

func main() {
    path := C.CString("/tmp/go.zip")
    zip := C.zip_open(path, 6, 'w')

    entryname := C.CString("test")
    C.zip_entry_open(zip, entryname)

    content := "test content"
    buf := unsafe.Pointer(C.CString(content))
    bufsize := C.size_t(len(content))
    C.zip_entry_write(zip, buf, bufsize)

    C.zip_entry_close(zip)

    C.zip_close(zip)
}

Rust (ffi)

extern crate libc;
use std::ffi::CString;

#[repr(C)]
pub struct Zip {
    _private: [u8; 0],
}

#[link(name = "zip")]
extern "C" {
    fn zip_open(path: *const libc::c_char, level: libc::c_int, mode: libc::c_char) -> *mut Zip;
    fn zip_close(zip: *mut Zip) -> libc::c_void;

    fn zip_entry_open(zip: *mut Zip, entryname: *const libc::c_char) -> libc::c_int;
    fn zip_entry_close(zip: *mut Zip) -> libc::c_int;
    fn zip_entry_write(
        zip: *mut Zip,
        buf: *const libc::c_void,
        bufsize: libc::size_t,
    ) -> libc::c_int;
}

fn main() {
    let path = CString::new("/tmp/rust.zip").unwrap();
    let mode: libc::c_char = 'w' as libc::c_char;

    let entryname = CString::new("test.txt").unwrap();
    let content = "test content\0";

    unsafe {
        let zip: *mut Zip = zip_open(path.as_ptr(), 5, mode);
        {
            zip_entry_open(zip, entryname.as_ptr());
            {
                let buf = content.as_ptr() as *const libc::c_void;
                let bufsize = content.len() as libc::size_t;
                zip_entry_write(zip, buf, bufsize);
            }
            zip_entry_close(zip);
        }
        zip_close(zip);
    }
}

Ruby (ffi)

Install ffi gem.

$ gem install ffi

Bind in your module.

require 'ffi'

module Zip
  extend FFI::Library
  ffi_lib "./libzip.#{::FFI::Platform::LIBSUFFIX}"

  attach_function :zip_open, [:string, :int, :char], :pointer
  attach_function :zip_close, [:pointer], :void

  attach_function :zip_entry_open, [:pointer, :string], :int
  attach_function :zip_entry_close, [:pointer], :void
  attach_function :zip_entry_write, [:pointer, :string, :int], :int
end

ptr = Zip.zip_open("/tmp/ruby.zip", 6, "w".bytes()[0])

status = Zip.zip_entry_open(ptr, "test")

content = "test content"
status = Zip.zip_entry_write(ptr, content, content.size())

Zip.zip_entry_close(ptr)
Zip.zip_close(ptr)

Python (cffi)

Install cffi package

$ pip install cffi

Bind in your package.

import ctypes.util
from cffi import FFI

ffi = FFI()
ffi.cdef("""
    struct zip_t *zip_open(const char *zipname, int level, char mode);
    void zip_close(struct zip_t *zip);

    int zip_entry_open(struct zip_t *zip, const char *entryname);
    int zip_entry_close(struct zip_t *zip);
    int zip_entry_write(struct zip_t *zip, const void *buf, size_t bufsize);
""")

Zip = ffi.dlopen(ctypes.util.find_library("zip"))

ptr = Zip.zip_open("/tmp/python.zip", 6, 'w')

status = Zip.zip_entry_open(ptr, "test")

content = "test content"
status = Zip.zip_entry_write(ptr, content, len(content))

Zip.zip_entry_close(ptr)
Zip.zip_close(ptr)

Never (ffi)

extern "libzip.so" func zip_open(zipname: string, level: int, mode: char) -> c_ptr
extern "libzip.so" func zip_close(zip: c_ptr) -> void

extern "libzip.so" func zip_entry_open(zip: c_ptr, entryname: string) -> int
extern "libzip.so" func zip_entry_close(zip: c_ptr) -> int
extern "libzip.so" func zip_entry_write(zip: c_ptr, buf: string, bufsize: int) -> int
extern "libzip.so" func zip_entry_fwrite(zip: c_ptr, filename: string) -> int

func main() -> int
{
    let content = "Test content"

    let zip = zip_open("/tmp/never.zip", 6, 'w');

    zip_entry_open(zip, "test.file");
    zip_entry_fwrite(zip, "/tmp/test.txt");
    zip_entry_close(zip);

    zip_entry_open(zip, "test.content");
    zip_entry_write(zip, content, length(content));
    zip_entry_close(zip);

    zip_close(zip);
    0
}

Ring

The language comes with RingZip based on this library

load "ziplib.ring"

new Zip {
    setFileName("myfile.zip")
    open("w")
    newEntry() {
        open("test.c")
        writefile("test.c")
        close()
    }
    close()
}

Zig

$ zig build-exe main.zig -lc -lzip

const c = @cImport({
    @cInclude("zip.h");
});

pub fn main() void {
    var zip = c.zip_open("/tmp/zig.zip", 6, 'w');
    defer c.zip_close(zip);

    _ = c.zip_entry_open(zip, "test");
    defer _ = c.zip_entry_close(zip);

    const content = "test content";
    _ = c.zip_entry_write(zip, content, content.len);
}

Odin

Third party binding: thechampagne/zip-odin

package main

foreign import lib "system:zip"

import "core:c"

foreign lib {
    zip_open :: proc(zipname : cstring, level : c.int, mode : c.char) -> rawptr ---

    zip_close :: proc(zip : rawptr) ---

    zip_entry_open :: proc(zip : rawptr, entryname : cstring) -> c.int ---

    zip_entry_close :: proc(zip : rawptr) -> c.int ---

    zip_entry_write :: proc(zip : rawptr, buf : rawptr, bufsize : c.size_t) -> c.int ---
}

main :: proc() {
    zip_file := zip_open("odin.zip", 6, 'w')
    defer zip_close(zip_file)

    zip_entry_open(zip_file, "test")
    defer zip_entry_close(zip_file)

    content := "test content"
    zip_entry_write(zip_file, &content, len(content))
}

Nim

Third party binding: thechampagne/nimzip

$ nim c --passL:-lzip main.nim

proc zip_open(zipname: cstring, level: cint, mode: char): pointer {.importc.}
proc zip_close(zip: pointer) {.importc.}
proc zip_entry_open(zip: pointer, entryname: cstring): cint {.importc.}
proc zip_entry_close(zip: pointer): cint {.importc.}
proc zip_entry_write(zip: pointer, buf: pointer, bufsize: csize_t): cint {.importc.}

when isMainModule:
  var zip = zip_open("/tmp/nim.zip", 6, 'w')

  discard zip_entry_open(zip, "test")

  let content: cstring = "test content"
  discard zip_entry_write(zip, content, csize_t(len(content)))

  discard zip_entry_close(zip)
  zip_close(zip)

D

Third party binding: thechampagne/zip-d

$ dmd -L-lzip main.d

extern(C) void* zip_open(const(char)* zipname, int level, char mode);
extern(C) void zip_close(void* zip);
extern(C) int zip_entry_open(void* zip, const(char)* entryname);
extern(C) int zip_entry_close(void* zip);
extern(C) int zip_entry_write(void* zip, const(void)* buf, size_t bufsize);

void main()
{
  void* zip = zip_open("/tmp/d.zip", 6, 'w');
  scope(exit) zip_close(zip);

  zip_entry_open(zip, "test");
  scope(exit) zip_entry_close(zip);

  string content = "test content";
  zip_entry_write(zip, content.ptr, content.length);
}

Pascal

Third party binding: thechampagne/zip-pascal

program main;

{$linklib c}
{$linklib zip}

uses ctypes;

function zip_open(zipname:Pchar; level:longint; mode:char):pointer;cdecl;external;
procedure zip_close(zip:pointer);cdecl;external;
function zip_entry_open(zip:pointer; entryname:Pchar):longint;cdecl;external;
function zip_entry_close(zip:pointer):longint;cdecl;external;
function zip_entry_write(zip:pointer; buf:pointer; bufsize:csize_t):longint;cdecl;external;

const
   content: Pchar = 'test content';
var
   zip : pointer;

begin
   zip := zip_open('/tmp/pascal.zip', 6, 'w');

   zip_entry_open(zip, 'test');

   zip_entry_write(zip, content, strlen(content));
   zip_entry_close(zip);
   zip_close(zip);
end.

lua

Third party binding: gynt/luamemzip

-- Loads the luamemzip.dll
zip = require("luamemzip")

content = "Test content"

z = zip.zip_stream_open(nil, 6, 'w')

zip.zip_entry_open(z, "test.content")
zip.zip_entry_write(z, content)
zip.zip_entry_close(z)

data = zip.zip_stream_copy(z)

zip.zip_close(z)

Check out more cool projects which use this library

Filament: Filament is a real-time physically based rendering engine for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, and WebGL. It is designed to be as small as possible and as efficient as possible on Android.
Hermes JS Engine: Hermes is a JavaScript engine optimized for fast start-up of React Native apps on Android. It features ahead-of-time static optimization and compact bytecode.
Monster Mash: New Sketch-Based Modeling and Animation Tool.
Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine: OGRE is a scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine written in C++ designed to make it easier and more intuitive for developers to produce games and demos utilising 3D hardware.
Open Asset Import Library: A library to import and export various 3d-model-formats including scene-post-processing to generate missing render data.
PowerToys: Set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows 10 experience for greater productivity.
The Ring Programming Language: Innovative and practical general-purpose multi-paradigm language.
The V Programming Language: Simple, fast, safe, compiled. For developing maintainable software.
TIC-80: TIC-80 is a FREE and OPEN SOURCE fantasy computer for making, playing and sharing tiny games.
Urho3D: Urho3D is a free lightweight, cross-platform 2D and 3D game engine implemented in C++ and released under the MIT license. Greatly inspired by OGRE and Horde3D.
and more...