Working with zip files and Flash Platform

In our last Flash / AIR project we are working with tons of automations to create files, save them on computer, download files from the web and so on.

A library that I think could be interesting not only for us but also for other people that will work with zip files is FZIP from codeazur.

I saw it a couple of years ago and finally I used it, I think it’s so cool for your desktop or web projects based on Flex, Flash or AIR.
Working with FZIP is so easy, if you want to add a file into a new zip file you only write:

var zip:FZip = new FZip(); zip.addFile(f.name, f.data); //f is a File object instance

You can also set a particular position for your file with addFileAt method, remove a file, read each file and working with it without using any different language; all with Actionscript 3!

When you are ready to create your zip file you can save it with FileStream object like this:

var ba:ByteArray = new ByteArray(); zip.serialize(ba) ba.position = 0; var finalZIP:File = File.desktopDirectory.resolvePath("AIRZIPPER.zip"); var fs:FileStream = new FileStream(); fs.open(finalZIP, FileMode.WRITE); fs.writeBytes(ba); fs.close();

FZip generally can’t read ZIPs that make use of Data Descriptors. Examples of such ZIPs are those created by the Mac OS X Archiver utility, SWCs, JARs, etc.