yazl

What is yazl?

The yazl npm package is a library for creating ZIP archives in a straightforward and efficient manner. It allows you to add files, directories, and even raw data to a ZIP archive, and then output the archive to a writable stream.

What are yazl's main functionalities?

Creating a ZIP Archive

This feature allows you to create a ZIP archive and add a file to it. The code sample demonstrates how to add a file from the filesystem to the ZIP archive and then write the archive to a file named 'output.zip'.

const yazl = require('yazl');
const fs = require('fs');

let zipfile = new yazl.ZipFile();
zipfile.addFile('path/to/file.txt', 'file.txt');
zipfile.outputStream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('output.zip')).on('close', function() {
  console.log('ZIP file created successfully');
});
zipfile.end();

Adding a Directory to a ZIP Archive

This feature allows you to add an entire directory to a ZIP archive. The code sample demonstrates how to recursively add all files and subdirectories from a specified directory to the ZIP archive.

const yazl = require('yazl');
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

let zipfile = new yazl.ZipFile();

function addDirectoryToZip(zipfile, dirPath, zipPath) {
  fs.readdirSync(dirPath).forEach(file => {
    const fullPath = path.join(dirPath, file);
    const zipFilePath = path.join(zipPath, file);
    if (fs.statSync(fullPath).isDirectory()) {
      addDirectoryToZip(zipfile, fullPath, zipFilePath);
    } else {
      zipfile.addFile(fullPath, zipFilePath);
    }
  });
}

addDirectoryToZip(zipfile, 'path/to/directory', 'directory');
zipfile.outputStream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('output.zip')).on('close', function() {
  console.log('ZIP file created successfully');
});
zipfile.end();

Adding Raw Data to a ZIP Archive

This feature allows you to add raw data to a ZIP archive. The code sample demonstrates how to create a buffer from a string and add it to the ZIP archive as a file named 'hello.txt'.

const yazl = require('yazl');
const fs = require('fs');

let zipfile = new yazl.ZipFile();
let rawData = Buffer.from('Hello, world!', 'utf-8');
zipfile.addBuffer(rawData, 'hello.txt');
zipfile.outputStream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('output.zip')).on('close', function() {
  console.log('ZIP file created successfully');
});
zipfile.end();

Other packages similar to yazl

archiver

The archiver package is a versatile library for creating ZIP and other archive formats. It offers a higher-level API compared to yazl and supports additional formats like TAR. Archiver is more feature-rich but may be more complex to use for simple ZIP creation tasks.

adm-zip

The adm-zip package is another library for handling ZIP archives. It provides both creation and extraction functionalities, making it a more comprehensive solution compared to yazl, which focuses solely on ZIP creation. ADM-ZIP is user-friendly and suitable for both simple and complex ZIP operations.

node-stream-zip

The node-stream-zip package is designed for working with ZIP archives in a streaming manner. It is particularly useful for handling large ZIP files efficiently. While yazl focuses on creating ZIP files, node-stream-zip excels in reading and extracting them, making it a complementary tool rather than a direct competitor.

README

yazl

yet another zip library for node

Design principles:

• Don't block the JavaScript thread. Use and provide async APIs.
• Keep memory usage under control. Don't attempt to buffer entire files in RAM at once.
• Prefer to open input files one at a time than all at once. This is slightly suboptimal for time performance, but avoids OS-imposed limits on the number of simultaneously open file handles.

Usage

var yazl = require("yazl");

var zipfile = new yazl.ZipFile();
zipfile.addFile("file1.txt", "file1.txt");
// (add only files, not directories)
zipfile.addFile("path/to/file.txt", "path/in/zipfile.txt");
// pipe() can be called any time after the constructor
zipfile.outputStream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream("output.zip")).on("close", function() {
  console.log("done");
});
// alternate apis for adding files:
zipfile.addReadStream(process.stdin, "stdin.txt", {
  mtime: new Date(),
  mode: 0100664, // -rw-rw-r--
});
zipfile.addBuffer(new Buffer("hello"), "hello.txt", {
  mtime: new Date(),
  mode: 0100664, // -rw-rw-r--
});
// call end() after all the files have been added
zipfile.end();

API

Class: ZipFile

new ZipFile()

No parameters. Nothing can go wrong.

addFile(realPath, metadataPath, [options])

Adds a file from the file system at realPath into the zipfile as metadataPath. Typically metadataPath would be calculated as path.relative(root, realPath). Unzip programs would extract the file from the zipfile as metadataPath. realPath is not stored in the zipfile.

This function throws an error if metadataPath starts with "/" or /[A-Za-z]:\// or if it contains ".." path segments or "\\". These would be illegal file names according to the spec.

options may be omitted or null has the following structure and default values:

{
  mtime: stats.mtime, // optional
  mode: stats.mode,   // optional
  compress: true,     // optional
}

Use options.mtime and/or options.mode to override the values that would normally be obtained by the fs.Stats for the realPath. The mtime and mode (unix permission bits and file type) are stored in the zip file in the fields "last mod file time", "last mod file date", and "external file attributes". yazl does not store group and user ids in the zip file.

Internally, fs.stat() is called immediately in the addFile function, and fs.createReadStream() is used later when the file data is actually required. Throughout adding and encoding n files with addFile(), the number of simultaneous open files is O(1), probably just 1 at a time.

addReadStream(readStream, metadataPath, options)

Adds a file to the zip file whose content is read from readStream. See addFile() for info about the metadataPath parameter. options is an Object and has the following structure:

{
  mtime: new Date(), // required
  mode: 0100664,     // required
  compress: true,    // optional (default true)
  size: 12345,       // optional
}

See addFile() for the meaning of mtime and mode. If size is given, it will be checked against the actual number of bytes in the readStream, and an error will be emitted if there is a mismatch.

addBuffer(buffer, metadataPath, options)

Adds a file to the zip file whose content is buffer. See addFile() for info about the metadataPath parameter. options is an Object and has the following structure:

{
  mtime: new Date(), // required
  mode: 0100664,     // required
  compress: true,    // optional (default true)
}

See addFile() for the meaning of mtime and mode.

end([finalSizeCallback])

Indicates that no more files will be added via addFile(), addReadStream(), or addBuffer(). Some time after calling this function, outputStream will be ended.

If specified and non-null, finalSizeCallback is given the parameters (finalSize) sometime during or after the call to end(). finalSize is of type Number and can either be -1 or the guaranteed eventual size in bytes of the output data that can be read from outputStream.

If finalSize is -1, it means means the final size is too hard to guess before processing the input file data. This will happen if and only if the compress option is true on any call to addFile(), addReadStream(), or addBuffer(), or if addReadStream() is called and the optional size option is not given. In other words, clients should know whether they're going to get a -1 or a real value by looking at how they are calling this function.

The call to finalSizeCallback might be delayed if yazl is still waiting for fs.Stats for an addFile() entry. If addFile() was never called, finalSizeCallback will be called during the call to end(). It is not required to start piping data from outputStream before finalSizeCallback is called. finalSizeCallback will be called only once, and only if this is the first call to end().

outputStream

A readable stream that will produce the contents of the zip file. It is typical to pipe this stream to a writable stream created from fs.createWriteStream().

Internally, large amounts of file data are piped to outputStream using pipe(), which means throttling happens appropriately when this stream is piped to a slow destination.

Data becomes available in this stream soon after calling one of addFile(), addReadStream(), or addBuffer(). Clients can call pipe() on this stream at any time, such as immediately after getting a new ZipFile instance, or long after calling end().

dateToDosDateTime(jsDate)

jsDate is a Date instance. Returns {date: date, time: time}, where date and time are unsigned 16-bit integers.

Output Structure

The Zip File Spec leaves a lot of flexibility up to the zip file creator. This section explains and justifies yazl's interpretation and decisions regarding this flexibility.

This section is probably not useful to yazl clients, but may be interesting to unzip implementors and zip file enthusiasts.

Disk Numbers

All values related to disk numbers are 0, because yazl has no multi-disk archive support.

Version Made By

Always 0x031e. This is the value reported by a Linux build of Info-Zip. Instead of experimenting with different values of this field to see how different unzip clients would behave, yazl mimics Info-Zip, which should work everywhere.

Note that the top byte means "UNIX" and has implications in the External File Attributes.

Version Needed to Extract

Always 0x0014. Without this value, Info-Zip, and possibly other unzip implementations, refuse to acknowledge General Purpose Bit 8, which enables utf8 filename encoding.

General Purpose Bit Flag

Bit 8 is always set. Filenames are always encoded in utf8, even if the result is indistinguishable from ascii.

Bit 3 is set in the Local File Header. To support both a streaming input and streaming output api, it is impossible to know the crc32 before processing the file data. File Descriptors are given after each file data with this information, as per the spec. But remember a complete metadata listing is still always available in the central directory record, so if unzip implementations are relying on that, like they should, none of this paragraph will matter anyway.

All other bits are unset.

Internal File Attributes

Always 0. The "apparently an ASCII or text file" bit is always unset meaning "apparently binary". This kind of determination is outside the scope of yazl, and is probably not significant in any modern unzip implementation.

External File Attributes

Always stats.mode << 16. This is apparently the convention for "version made by" = 0x03xx (UNIX).

Directory Entries

yazl does not record directories themselves as separate entries in the zipfile metadata. Instead, file entries with paths (such as "directory/file.txt") imply the need for their parent directories. Unzip clients seems to respect this style of pathing, and the zip file spec does not specify what is standard in this regard.

Directory entries would be required to archive empty directories (see issue #4).