Which zlib functions are compatable with WinZip?

Question

Using deflate() I was unable to open the zipped file using WinZip. Are the gz() the only ones compatable with WinZip? or is there some sort of mode I must call deflate() with?

Thanks.

Answer 1

zlib only implements the used compression algorithm, not the ZIP file structure. You need to parse the ZIP file yourself and then you can decompress the file chunks with zlib.

Note, that there is no gzip header in the file chunks, so you need to do a "raw inflate". Check the zlib documentation for more details.

Answer 2

from http://www.zlib.net/zlib_faq.html

Can zlib handle .zip archives?

Not by itself, no. See the directory contrib/minizip in the zlib distribution.