Is it possible to download just part of a ZIP archive (e.g. one file)?

Question

I was wondering is there any way by which I can download only a part of a .rar or .zip file without downloading the whole file ? There is a zip file containing files A,B,C a

Answer 1

Can you arrange for your file to appear in the back of the zip?

Download 100k:

$ curl -r -100000 https://www.keepassx.org/releases/2.0.2/KeePassX-2.0.2.zip -o tail.zip
% Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                             Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   97k  100   97k    0     0  84739      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:-- 84817

Check what files we did get:

$ unzip -t tail.zip
  (please check that you have transferred or created the zipfile in the
  appropriate BINARY mode and that you have compiled UnZip properly)
error [tail.zip]:  attempt to seek before beginning of zipfile
  (please check that you have transferred or created the zipfile in the
  appropriate BINARY mode and that you have compiled UnZip properly)
error [tail.zip]:  attempt to seek before beginning of zipfile
  (please check that you have transferred or created the zipfile in the
  appropriate BINARY mode and that you have compiled UnZip properly)
error [tail.zip]:  attempt to seek before beginning of zipfile
  (please check that you have transferred or created the zipfile in the
  appropriate BINARY mode and that you have compiled UnZip properly)
error [tail.zip]:  attempt to seek before beginning of zipfile
  (please check that you have transferred or created the zipfile in the
  appropriate BINARY mode and that you have compiled UnZip properly)
    testing: KeePassX-2.0.2/share/translations/keepassx_uk.qm   OK
    testing: KeePassX-2.0.2/share/translations/keepassx_zh_CN.qm   OK
    testing: KeePassX-2.0.2/share/translations/keepassx_zh_TW.qm   OK
    testing: KeePassX-2.0.2/zlib1.dll   OK
At least one error was detected in tail.zip.

Then extract the last file:

$ unzip tail.zip KeePassX-2.0.2/zlib1.dll
Archive:  tail.zip
error [tail.zip]:  missing 7751495 bytes in zipfile
  (attempting to process anyway)
  inflating: KeePassX-2.0.2/zlib1.dll