Some of the main features of Zip for .NET that you may find useful include the following:

• Major operations

  With Zip for .NET, you can:

  • Obtain global information on a zip file.
  • Obtain a detailed list of a zip file's contents via a collection object.
  • Delete files from within a zip file.
  • Test the integrity of a zip file and its contents.
  • Add and retrieve comments for individual files in the zip file.
  • Get and set the global zip file comment.
  • Control what path information is stored in the zip file for each file.
  • Zip system and hidden files.
  • Control the amount of compression applied to files being zipped.
  • Specify the path where files will be uncompressed to.
  • Work on temporary copies of zip files, for maximum safety.
• Compress and Expand Folders

  With Zip you can easily compress and expand folders while preserving folder structure.

• Read and Write to Streams

  Zip can read and write to zip files stored in streams in addition to actual files using the C1ZipFile.Open(Stream) method. This allows reading zip files embedded in application resources or stored in database fields instead of in actual files.

• Get and Set File Information

  Easily obtain zip file information including a detailed list of the zip file's contents. You can also control file information by adding and retrieving comments and control path information for individual entries in the zip file, and getting and setting the global zip file comment.

• File Integrity and Safety

  With Zip you can test the integrity of a zip file and its contents and work on temporary copies of zip files to ensure maximum safety.

• Compress and Manipulate Compressed Files

  Compress files, including system and hidden files, and easily manipulate compressed files by deleting files from within a zip file, controlling the amount of compression applied to files being zipped, and specifying the path where files will be uncompressed to.

• Incorporates the ZLIB Advantage

  ZLIB is a general-purpose, lossless data-compression library with a portable, cross-platform data format. Unlike Unix compress and GIF image format LZW compression, the ZLIB compression method essentially never expands the data (LZW doubles or triples the file size in extreme cases) and has a memory footprint independent of input data.

• Support for Zip64

  C1Zip now supports Zip64 files. This allows for entries longer than the usual 4 gig limit and also allows more entries per zip file. The maximum number of entries per ZIP file is 2,147,483,647 (int.MaxValue). The maximum uncompressed entry size is 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (long.MaxValue).

• Fast, low memory usage compression engine

  The low memory compression engine lets you:

  • Zip files or memory buffers into new or existing zip files.
  • Unzip files to disk or directly to memory.
  • Compress and decompress strings or buffers completely in memory.
  • Stream-based compression and decompression for maximum flexibility.
• 100% managed C# code

  C1.C1Zip.ZLib is a C# implementation of Adler and Gailly's ZLIB code and contains a main class ZStream that handles stream-based compression and decompression. ZLIB handles the actual data compression and decompression.

  ZLIB is designed to be a free, general-purpose, lossless data-compression library for use on virtually any computer hardware and operating system. The ZLIB data format is itself portable across platforms. Unlike the LZW compression method used in Unix compress and in the GIF image format, the compression method currently used in ZLIB essentially never expands the data. (LZW can double or triple the file size in extreme cases.) ZLIB's memory footprint is also independent of the input data.

• Simple, intuitive object model

  Zip for .NET contains three main classes:

• C1ZStreamWriter is a stream object that takes regular data on input, compresses it, and writes it out to an underlying stream. You can compress data to files, memory, or any other type of stream. You can attach a BinaryWriter object to C1ZStreamWriter to write objects directly, without dealing with byte arrays.
• C1ZStreamReader is a stream object that takes a compressed stream as input and decompresses it as it reads data from the underlying compressed stream. You can attach a BinaryReader object to C1ZStreamReader to read objects directly, without dealing with byte arrays.
• C1ZipFile is a class that deals with zip files. It allows you to create, open, and modify zip files. C1ZipFile has a Entries property that represents a collection of entries in a zip file.