Zip archives in node.js

Question

I want to create a zip archive and unzip it in node.js.

I can\'t find any node implementation.

Answer 1

I've found it easiest to roll my own wrapper around 7-zip, but you could just as easily use zip or whatever command line zip tool is available in your runtime environment. This particular module just does one thing: zip a directory.

const { spawn } = require('child_process');
const path = require('path');

module.exports = (directory, zipfile, log) => {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    if (!log) log = console;

    try {
      const zipArgs = ['a', zipfile, path.join(directory, '*')];
      log.info('zip args', zipArgs);
      const zipProcess = spawn('7z', zipArgs);
      zipProcess.stdout.on('data', message => {
        // received a message sent from the 7z process
        log.info(message.toString());
      });

      // end the input stream and allow the process to exit
      zipProcess.on('error', (err) => {
        log.error('err contains: ' + err);
        throw err;
      });

      zipProcess.on('close', (code) => {
        log.info('The 7z exit code was: ' + code);
        if (code != 0) throw '7zip exited with an error'; // throw and let the handler below log it
        else {
          log.info('7zip complete');
          return resolve();
        }
      });
    }
    catch(err) {
      return reject(err);
    }
  });
}

Use it like this, assuming you've saved the above code into zipdir.js. The third log param is optional. Use it if you have a custom logger. Or delete my obnoxious log statements entirely.

const zipdir = require('./zipdir');

(async () => {
  await zipdir('/path/to/my/directory', '/path/to/file.zip');
})();