ZipSFX Control

Properties   Methods   Events   Config Settings   Errors  

The ZipSFX control implements a PKZip-compatible Zip compressor to create a self-extracting archive which will run natively on Windows platforms.

Syntax

ZipSFX

Remarks

The control uses the Deflate algorithm specified in RFC 1951 for compression, and then creates a self-extracting executable archive. This exe will bring up a dialog that will allow the user to select the target directory in which to decompress the files. There is also an optional splash screen that may be displayed before decompression. The text for this splash screen may be set with the BannerText property. You can also set the text that appears on the title bar of each dialog box using the CaptionText property.

Example (Creating a Self-Extracting Archive)

control.ArchiveFile = "c:\test.exe" control.RecurseSubdirectories = true control.SourceDirectory = "c:\foo\" control.CaptionText = "Testing ZipSFX" control.BannerText = "Press continue to decompress the archive." control.CreateSFX()

Note: When creating a self-extracting archive which exceeds 4 GB or more of uncompressed data or which contains more than 64K files, the control will create a 64-bit Zip archive.

The self-extracting archive that is created by the ZipSFX control is a Windows application. However, there are command line options available if you wish to batch multiple files. The options are:

For example, the following suppresses all questions and message boxes, and decompress to the current directory, use the following options: ZipExtractor /targetpath="." /overwrite=1 /displaymessage=0 /openfile=0 /password=pass

Note that if you run the self-extracting archive with any command line options, the pop up message box containing the BannerText will be suppressed.

Property List

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The following is the full list of the properties of the control with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

Method List

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The following is the full list of the methods of the control with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

Event List

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The following is the full list of the events fired by the control with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

Config Settings

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The following is a list of config settings for the control with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.

ArchiveFile Property (ZipSFX Control)

The name of the self-extracting zip archive to create.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.ArchiveFile[=string]

Default Value

""

Remarks

This property specifies the name of the archive to be written when CreateSFX is called. Any pre-existing archive file will be overwritten.

The filename may be specified with or without a path. Paths may be relative or absolute, and should be specified in the format native to the host operating system. The filename should be specified with the appropriate ".exe" extension. An extension will not automatically be appended by the control.

If the file cannot be written a trappable error will be generated.

Example (Creating a Self-Extracting Archive)

control.ArchiveFile = "c:\test.exe" control.RecurseSubdirectories = true control.SourceDirectory = "c:\foo\" control.CaptionText = "Testing ZipSFX" control.BannerText = "Press continue to decompress the archive." control.CreateSFX()

Note: When creating a self-extracting archive which exceeds 4 GB or more of uncompressed data or which contains more than 64K files, the control will create a 64-bit Zip archive.

Data Type

String

BannerText Property (ZipSFX Control)

Optional banner text to show before the self-extraction starts.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.BannerText[=string]

Default Value

""

Remarks

If this property is set, a dialog box will pop up displaying the contents of this property as soon as the SFX executable is run. If this property is set to an empty string (default) no banner dialog will be displayed.

Example (Creating a Self-Extracting Archive)

control.ArchiveFile = "c:\test.exe" control.RecurseSubdirectories = true control.SourceDirectory = "c:\foo\" control.CaptionText = "Testing ZipSFX" control.BannerText = "Press continue to decompress the archive." control.CreateSFX()

Data Type

String

CaptionText Property (ZipSFX Control)

Optional caption (title) text for the self-extractor dialogs.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.CaptionText[=string]

Default Value

""

Remarks

This property contains the text which will appear on the title bar of the dialog boxes that appear when running the SFX executable file. If this property is not set, "IPWorks Zip Self Extractor - www.nsoftware.com" will appear in the title bar.

Example (Creating a Self-Extracting Archive)

control.ArchiveFile = "c:\test.exe" control.RecurseSubdirectories = true control.SourceDirectory = "c:\foo\" control.CaptionText = "Testing ZipSFX" control.BannerText = "Press continue to decompress the archive." control.CreateSFX()

Data Type

String

CompressionLevel Property (ZipSFX Control)

The compression level to use.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.CompressionLevel[=integer]

Default Value

4

Remarks

This property specifies the level of compression to be used, between 0 and 6. Higher values will cause the control to compress better; lower values will cause the control to compress faster. A value of 0 will store the file without compression.

Data Type

Integer

ExtractToPath Property (ZipSFX Control)

Optional target directory for the self-extractor.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.ExtractToPath[=string]

Default Value

""

Remarks

If set to empty string (default), the self-extractor will attempt to extract files into a subdirectory of the directory it is being executed from.

The name of the subdirectory is derived from the name of the self-extracting archive by removing its extension.

Data Type

String

FileToExecute Property (ZipSFX Control)

Optional file to execute (open) after the archive is extracted.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.FileToExecute[=string]

Default Value

"."

Remarks

This property specifies an executable file which will be run after the archive has completed decompressing. This must be a relative path to a file located within ExtractToPath. If this property is set to ".", the folder to which the archive has been decompressed will open in Windows Explorer. If this property is set to "" (empty string), the extractor will close and take no action.

Data Type

String

Password Property (ZipSFX Control)

An optional password for the self-extracting archive.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.Password[=string]

Default Value

""

Remarks

This property specifies a case-sensitive password used to encrypt or decrypt the archive. If set to an empty string (default), no encryption is used.

The maximum supported length of the password is 128 characters.

Example (compressing an SFX archive):

control.ArchiveFile = "c:\test.exe" control.RecurseSubdirectories = true control.SourceDirectory = "c:\foo" control.Password = "nsoftware" control.CreateSFX()

Data Type

String

RecurseSubdirectories Property (ZipSFX Control)

Whether or not to recurse into subdirectories during archive creation.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.RecurseSubdirectories[=boolean]

Default Value

True

Remarks

If this property is set to true, when calling CreateSFX the control will recurse into all the subdirectories under SourceDirectory and include them in the self extracting archive. If this property is false, only the files in SourceDirectory will be included in the archive.

Data Type

Boolean

SourceDirectory Property (ZipSFX Control)

Directory to be compressed into a self-extracting archive.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.SourceDirectory[=string]

Default Value

""

Remarks

This property specifies the name of the directory containing the files to be compressed. This may be a local or absolute path. If the RecurseSubdirectories property is true, all the subdirectories under SourceDirectory will be recursed into, and those files will also be compressed.

Example (Creating a Self-Extracting Archive)

control.ArchiveFile = "c:\test.exe" control.RecurseSubdirectories = true control.SourceDirectory = "c:\foo\" control.CaptionText = "Testing ZipSFX" control.BannerText = "Press continue to decompress the archive." control.CreateSFX()

Data Type

String

Config Method (ZipSFX Control)

Sets or retrieves a configuration setting.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.Config ConfigurationString

Remarks

Config is a generic method available in every control. It is used to set and retrieve configuration settings for the control.

These settings are similar in functionality to properties, but they are rarely used. In order to avoid "polluting" the property namespace of the control, access to these internal properties is provided through the Config method.

To set a configuration setting named PROPERTY, you must call Config("PROPERTY=VALUE"), where VALUE is the value of the setting expressed as a string. For boolean values, use the strings "True", "False", "0", "1", "Yes", or "No" (case does not matter).

To read (query) the value of a configuration setting, you must call Config("PROPERTY"). The value will be returned as a string.

CreateSFX Method (ZipSFX Control)

Compresses the files and creates a self-extracting archive.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.CreateSFX 

Remarks

Invoking CreateSFX creates the archive specified by ArchiveFile. When the method is called, all files specified by SourceDirectory will be compressed and written to ArchiveFile. If RecurseSubdirectories is true, all the subdirectories under SourceDirectory and the files they contain will also be compressed and written to ArchiveFile.

If ArchiveFile exists when you call CreateSFX it will be overwritten.

As the files in SourceDirectory are being compressed, the Progress event will fire periodically to indicate how many bytes have been processed and the percentage of compression that has been completed.

To include your own custom text on the title bar of all of the self-extractor dialog boxes, set the CaptionText before calling CreateSFX. Setting the optional BannerText property will cause a small dialog to pop up when the self-extractor is run. You can put in a description of the contents, instructions, or any text you like.

Example (Creating a Self-Extracting Archive)

control.ArchiveFile = "c:\test.exe" control.RecurseSubdirectories = true control.SourceDirectory = "c:\foo\" control.CaptionText = "Testing ZipSFX" control.BannerText = "Press continue to decompress the archive." control.CreateSFX()

Note: When creating a self-extracting archive which exceeds 4 GB or more of uncompressed data or which contains more than 64K files, the control will create a 64-bit Zip archive.

The self-extracting archive that is created by the ZipSFX control is a Windows application. However, there are command line options available if you wish to batch multiple files. The options are:

For example, the following suppresses all questions and message boxes, and decompress to the current directory, use the following options: ZipExtractor /targetpath="." /overwrite=1 /displaymessage=0 /openfile=0 /password=pass

Note that if you run the self-extracting archive with any command line options, the pop up message box containing the BannerText will be suppressed.

Reset Method (ZipSFX Control)

Resets the control.

Syntax

zipsfxcontrol.Reset 

Remarks

Reset resets the state of the control. All properties will be set to their default values, and any files open will be closed.

Error Event (ZipSFX Control)

Information about non-fatal errors.

Syntax

Sub zipsfxcontrol_Error(Description As String, ErrorCode As Integer, Index As Integer, Filename As String, Ignore As Boolean)

Remarks

The Error event is fired when non-fatal errors occur during compression or decompression. Note that if this event is fired during decompression this may indicate that the archive is corrupt.

By default these errors will cause the component to fail with an exception. The exception may be overridden by setting Ignore to true. This will cause the error to be ignored, the file will be skipped if necessary, and the control will continue operation.

ErrorCode will correspond to one of the following errors:

Description contains a textual description of the error. Index and Filename contain the array index (where appropriate) and filename of the file being processed at the time of the error.

Progress Event (ZipSFX Control)

Fired as progress is made.

Syntax

Sub zipsfxcontrol_Progress(Filename As String, BytesProcessed As Long64, PercentProcessed As Integer)

Remarks

The Progress event is automatically fired as compression is performed.

Filename contains the name of the file being written.

BytesProcessed contains the total number of uncompressed bytes processed.

PercentProcessed contains the percent of uncompressed bytes processed, corresponding roughly to the running time of the operation.

Config Settings (ZipSFX Control)

The control accepts one or more of the following configuration settings. Configuration settings are similar in functionality to properties, but they are rarely used. In order to avoid "polluting" the property namespace of the control, access to these internal properties is provided through the Config method.

ZipSFX Config Settings

Base Config Settings

Trappable Errors (ZipSFX Control)

Errors

The following errors may be generated by the control. Note that frequently the error message will contain more specific information than what is listed here.

Note that some non-fatal errors may be trapped and explicitly ignored in the Error event. This will allow the control to continue operation even in case of error.

ZipSFX Errors