The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Zip API for .NET?

Does anyone have any experience using a Zip API/SDK for .NET beyond the one that PKWare offers.

PKWare wants me to fill out a blasted request form, then wait for them to get around to contacting me just to give me permission to evaluate their product. No thanks.

Mark Hoffman
Tuesday, February 3, 2004

Source and all @ http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SharpZipLib/Default.aspx

Dan G
Tuesday, February 3, 2004

Here's an article from MSDN on using the jar classes in J# to get ZIP functionality from C#:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/03/06/ZipCompression/

Dobie
Tuesday, February 3, 2004

http://www.xceedsoft.com/

They've got a downloadable trial. I've used their older ActiveX control and it works just fine.

Alex
Tuesday, February 3, 2004

Thanks for the links, everyone!

Mark Hoffman
Tuesday, February 3, 2004

SharpZipLib is fantastic and is highly recommended. It's 100% managed (which is both good and bad).

Dennis Forbes
Tuesday, February 3, 2004

If only they would ship a linker ;)

Damian
Tuesday, February 3, 2004

Don't forget the ZLib guys at www.gzip.org/zlib
It's under a BSD style license not a GNU one.

Peter Ibbotson
Wednesday, February 4, 2004

The free Visual Basic.NET Resource Kit contains a licence for ComponentOne .NET Component Library which contains a Zip Control.

Stefan Haubold
Wednesday, February 4, 2004

Nice Microsoft article. If you want zip functionality use java.util.zip

How about this advice- use Java until .Net matures as a platform and has a complete library.

name withheld out of cowardice
Wednesday, February 4, 2004

I don't think this is a question of .NET's maturity, but you do raise a good point.

Recently, I heard a presentation from Rob Howard (ASP.NET Program Manager) on what NET 2.0 will offer. He was very excited that numerous tool generators were being built into the framework. One of his demos was a website with security login, registration, and a discussion board. He said that a developer could make the site in 5-20 lines of code (or something in that range).

My reaction to this was that no commercial site would ever be drag and dropped together, and that most developers are not looking for a powerful Frontpage style tool. Not to generalize, there are useful parts of this upgrade. However, it makes one wonder why there are obvious holes regarding high level tools (FTP & file compression to name a few) within the framework. Why work on vast code generators when basic items appear to be missing?

My hunch is that the framework will never include these types of tools, probably as a move from Microsoft to encourage 3rd party development and build its community. While this is an annoyance as a developer, I can understand why they want partners as they move away from VS 6.

jfm424
Wednesday, February 4, 2004

www.componentone.com

One of the components is zip for .net.

Mike grace
Wednesday, February 4, 2004