reading zipx in java

Question

Any suggestions for a tool/object/utility to read a .zipx file in java?

Have already looked at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1200289/i-need-a-c-library-for-zipx and http://www.winzip.com/comp_info.htm

Answer 1

I don't find any such library, so I think your best bet is to invoke the WinZip command line, using java.lang.Runtime#exec(..)

Answer 2

It appears as though the ZIPX format is a regular ZIP container, just using compression methods other than DEFLATE.

This means you can use Java's regular ZipFile class to extract the byte[] contents, but depending on the value of ZipEntry.getMethod() you'll have to use non-JDK classes to decompress.

Compression methods and Java support:

• DEFLATE: in JDK
• bzip2: in Apache Commons
• Jpeg Compression - Compression Method 96: no Java code, AFAIK
• WavPack - Compression Method 97: at WavPack
• PPMd - Compression Method 98: no Java, AFAIK
• LZMA: available at http://contrapunctus.net/league/haques/lzmajio/

Note: this is for open-source Java libraries. It appears there's commercial, non-open-source libraries for all these.

In other words, apart from the above software from Chilkat software, you're gonna have to write a bunch of your own code to fully support ZIPX.

Needless to say, the folks at WinZip could add more compression methods at any point, so ZIPX isn't a fixed target.