IO::Compress::Zip(3)

📦 version 2.220.0, in opensuse-leap 16.0

🦋 IO::Compress::Zip 🦋

Okay bestie, this is the IO::Compress::Zip(3) page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation — manual name folded in right here, no cap. 💖

🌸 NAME 🌸

IO::Compress::Zip — literally Write zip files/buffers. That's the whole vibe. ✨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;

my $status = zip $input => $output [,OPTS]
    or die "zip failed: $ZipError\n";

my $z = IO::Compress::Zip->new( $output [,OPTS] )
    or die "zip failed: $ZipError\n";

$z->print($string);
$z->printf($format, $string);
$z->write($string);
$z->syswrite($string [, $length, $offset]);
$z->flush();
$z->tell();
$z->eof();
$z->seek($position, $whence);
$z->binmode();
$z->fileno();
$z->opened();
$z->autoflush();
$z->input_line_number();
$z->newStream( [OPTS] );

$z->deflateParams();

$z->close() ;

$ZipError ;

# IO::File mode

print $z $string;
printf $z $format, $string;
tell $z
eof $z
seek $z, $position, $whence
binmode $z
fileno $z
close $z ;

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

This module hands you a Perl interface that allows writing zip compressed data to files or buffer. 🗂️✨

The primary purpose of this module is to provide streaming write access to zip files and buffers. That's the main character energy. 👑

At present the following compression methods are supported by IO::Compress::Zip:

Store (0) — on the list, slay. 💾
Deflate (8) — also on the list. 🌬️
Bzip2 (12) — to write Bzip2 content, the module IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2 must be installed. 🫶
Lzma (14) — to write LZMA content, the module IO::Uncompress::UnLzma must be installed. 💜
Zstandard (93) — to write Zstandard content, the module IO::Compress::Zstd must be installed. ⚡
Xz (95) — to write Xz content, the module IO::Uncompress::UnXz must be installed. 🌀

For reading zip files/buffers, see the companion module IO::Uncompress::Unzip. 👀💖

✨ Functional Interface ✨

Okay so there's a top-level function called zip that does the whole "one-shot" thing — compress between buffers and/or files in a single glorious call 💅. But if you're the type who wants finer control over the compression process (main character energy, honestly), go peek at the "OO Interface" section.

use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;

zip $input_filename_or_reference => $output_filename_or_reference [,OPTS]
    or die "zip failed: $ZipError\n";

Heads up bestie: the functional interface needs Perl5.005 or better. No cap.

zip $input_filename_or_reference => $output_filename_or_reference [, OPTS]

zip expects at least two parameters — $input_filename_or_reference and $output_filename_or_reference — plus zero or more optional ones (those live down in "Optional Parameters", keep scrolling 🫶).

The $input_filename_or_reference parameter

So this param, $input_filename_or_reference, is literally the whole vibe-setter: it defines where your uncompressed data is coming from 💖.

It can take one of these forms:

A filename — if $input_filename_or_reference is a simple scalar, it's assumed to be a filename. The file gets opened for reading and the input data gets read from it.
A filehandle — if $input_filename_or_reference is a filehandle, the input data will be read from it. The string '-' works as an alias for standard input, iconique ✨.
A scalar reference — if $input_filename_or_reference is a scalar reference, the input data is read from $$input_filename_or_reference.
An array reference — if $input_filename_or_reference is an array reference, every element in the array must be a filename. The input data gets read from each file in turn. And the complete array will be walked first to make sure it only contains valid filenames before any data is compressed — a little vibe check up front, we love to see it 🎀.
An Input FileGlob string — if $input_filename_or_reference is a string delimited by the characters < and >, zip will assume it's an input fileglob string. The input is the list of files that match the fileglob. See File::GlobMapper for more details.

If $input_filename_or_reference is any other type, undef gets returned. Sad but true 😭.

In addition — and this is lowkey the best part — if $input_filename_or_reference corresponds to a filename from the filesystem, a bunch of zip file header fields get populated by default using these attributes from the input file:

the full filename contained in $input_filename_or_reference
the file protection attributes
the UID/GID for the file
the file timestamps

If you do not want those defaults (fair, boundaries), you can override them by explicitly setting one or more of the "Name", "Time", "TextFlag", "ExtAttr", "exUnixN" and "exTime" options, or by setting the "Minimal" parameter. Slay.

The $output_filename_or_reference parameter

Now for $output_filename_or_reference — this one controls the destination of the compressed data. It comes in these forms:

A filename — if $output_filename_or_reference is a simple scalar, it's assumed to be a filename. The file gets opened for writing and the compressed data gets written to it.
A filehandle — if $output_filename_or_reference is a filehandle, the compressed data gets written to it. The string '-' can be used as an alias for standard output 🌸.
A scalar reference — if $output_filename_or_reference is a scalar reference, the compressed data gets stored in $$output_filename_or_reference.
An Array Reference — if $output_filename_or_reference is an array reference, the compressed data gets pushed onto the array.
An Output FileGlob — if $output_filename_or_reference is a string delimited by the characters < and >, zip will assume it's an output fileglob string. The output is the list of files that match the fileglob.
- Here's the catch 🫠: when $output_filename_or_reference is a fileglob string, $input_filename_or_reference must also be a fileglob string. Anything else is an error. Periodt.
- See File::GlobMapper for more details.

If $output_filename_or_reference is any other type, undef will be returned.

Notes

When $input_filename_or_reference maps to multiple files/buffers and $output_filename_or_reference is a single file/buffer, the input files/buffers will each be stored in $output_filename_or_reference as a distinct entry ✨. Every single one gets its own little moment.

Optional Parameters

The optional parameters for the one-shot zip function are (for the most part) identical to those used with the OO interface defined in the "Constructor Options" section. The exceptions are listed below 💅

"AutoClose => 0|1" — this option applies to any input or output data streams handed to zip that are filehandles. If "AutoClose" is specified and the value is true, all input and/or output filehandles get closed once zip has completed. Defaults to 0.
"BinModeIn => 0|1" — okay so this option is now a no-op. All files will be read in binmode. It's giving retired icon 🫶.
"Append => 0|1" — the behaviour of this option depends on the type of output data stream:
- A Buffer — if "Append" is enabled, all compressed data gets appended to the end of the output buffer. Otherwise the output buffer gets cleared before any compressed data is written to it.
- A Filename — if "Append" is enabled, the file gets opened in append mode. Otherwise the contents of the file, if any, get truncated before any compressed data is written to it.
- A Filehandle — if "Append" is enabled, the filehandle gets positioned to the end of the file via a call to "seek" before any compressed data is written to it. Otherwise the file pointer doesn't move at all.
- So yeah, when "Append" is specified and set to true, it appends all compressed data to the output data stream. Which means: output is a filehandle → it carries out a seek to the eof before writing any compressed data; output is a filename → it gets opened for appending; output is a buffer → all compressed data gets appended to the existing buffer 💖.
- Conversely, when "Append" is not specified, or it's present and set to false, it operates like this: output is a filename → it truncates the contents of the file before writing any compressed data; output is a filehandle → its position will not be changed; output is a buffer → it gets wiped before any compressed data is output 😭.
- Defaults to 0.

Oneshot Examples

Here are a few examples showing off what this module can do 👑

Streaming

This very simple command line example demonstrates the streaming capabilities of the module. The code reads data from STDIN, compresses it, and writes the compressed data to STDOUT.

$ echo hello world | perl -MIO::Compress::Zip=zip -e 'zip \*STDIN => \*STDOUT' >output.zip

The special filename "-" can be used as a standin for both "\*STDIN" and "\*STDOUT", so the above can be rewritten as:

$ echo hello world | perl -MIO::Compress::Zip=zip -e 'zip "-" => "-"' >output.zip

One problem with creating a zip archive directly from STDIN can be demonstrated by looking at the contents of the zip file, output.zip, that we have just created 💀

$ unzip -l output.zip
Archive:  output.zip
Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
    12  2019-08-16 22:21
---------                     -------
    12                     1 file

The archive member (filename) used is the empty string. Yeah. Nothing. Nada 🙈.

If that doesn't suit your needs, you can explicitly set the filename used in the zip archive by specifying the Name option, like so:

echo hello world | perl -MIO::Compress::Zip=zip -e 'zip "-" => "-", Name => "hello.txt"' >output.zip

Now the contents of the zip file looks like this:

$ unzip -l output.zip
Archive:  output.zip
Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
    12  2019-08-16 22:22   hello.txt
---------                     -------
    12                     1 file

See? A whole name. We love growth 🌱.

Compressing a file from the filesystem

To read the contents of the file "file1.txt" and write the compressed data to the file "file1.txt.zip":

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;

my $input = "file1.txt";
zip $input => "$input.zip"
    or die "zip failed: $ZipError\n";

Reading from a Filehandle and writing to an in-memory buffer

To read from an existing Perl filehandle, $input, and write the compressed data to a buffer, $buffer:

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;
use IO::File ;

my $input = IO::File->new( "<file1.txt" )
    or die "Cannot open 'file1.txt': $!\n" ;
my $buffer ;
zip $input => \$buffer
    or die "zip failed: $ZipError\n";

Compressing multiple files

To create a zip file, "output.zip", that contains the compressed contents of the files "alpha.txt" and "beta.txt":

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;

zip [ 'alpha.txt', 'beta.txt' ] => 'output.zip'
    or die "zip failed: $ZipError\n";

Alternatively, rather than having to explicitly name each of the files that you want to compress, you could use a fileglob to select all the "txt" files in the current directory, as follows:

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;

my @files = <*.txt>;
zip \@files => 'output.zip'
    or die "zip failed: $ZipError\n";

or more succinctly:

zip [ <*.txt> ] => 'output.zip'
    or die "zip failed: $ZipError\n";

Look at that. One line. Obsessed 🔥

🦋 OO Interface 🦋

Constructor

The format of the constructor for IO::Compress::Zip is shown below:

my $z = IO::Compress::Zip->new( $output [,OPTS] )
    or die "IO::Compress::Zip failed: $ZipError\n";

The constructor takes one mandatory parameter, $output, defined below, and zero or more "OPTS", defined in "Constructor Options" 🎀.

It returns an IO::Compress::Zip object on success and undef on failure. The variable $ZipError will contain an error message on failure 😭.

Okay so if you’re running Perl 5.005 or better, the object $z that comes back from IO::Compress::Zip can be used exactly like an IO::File filehandle. That means all normal output file operations can be carried out with $z. For example, to write to a compressed file/buffer you can use either of these forms:

        $z->print("hello world\n");
        print $z "hello world\n";

Below is a simple example of using the OO interface to create an output file "myfile.zip" and write some data to it.

        my $filename = "myfile.zip";
        my $z = IO::Compress::Zip->new($filename)
            or die "IO::Compress::Zip failed: $ZipError\n";

        $z->print("abcde");
        $z->close();

See the "Examples" for more.

The mandatory parameter $output is used to control the destination of the compressed data. This parameter can take one of these forms.

A filename — If the $output parameter is a simple scalar, it is assumed to be a filename. This file will be opened for writing and the compressed data will be written to it.
A filehandle — If the $output parameter is a filehandle, the compressed data will be written to it. The string '-' can be used as an alias for standard output.
A scalar reference — If $output is a scalar reference, the compressed data will be stored in $$output.

If the $output parameter is any other type, "IO::Compress::Zip"::new will return undef.

💅 Constructor Options 💅

OPTS is any combination of zero or more the following options:

AutoClose => 0|1 — This option is only valid when the $output parameter is a filehandle. If specified, and the value is true, it will result in the $output being closed once either the close method is called or the IO::Compress::Zip object is destroyed. This parameter defaults to 0.
Append => 0|1 — Opens $output in append mode. The behaviour of this option is dependent on the type of $output.
- A Buffer — If $output is a buffer and Append is enabled, all compressed data will be append to the end of $output. Otherwise $output will be cleared before any data is written to it.
- A Filename — If $output is a filename and Append is enabled, the file will be opened in append mode. Otherwise the contents of the file, if any, will be truncated before any compressed data is written to it.
- A Filehandle — If $output is a filehandle, the file pointer will be positioned to the end of the file via a call to seek before any compressed data is written to it. Otherwise the file pointer will not be moved. This parameter defaults to 0.

🎀 File Naming Options 🎀

A quick bit of zip file terminology -- A zip archive consists of one or more archive members, where each member has an associated filename, known as the archive member name.

The options listed in this section control how the archive member name (or filename) is stored in the zip archive.

Name => $string — This option is used to explicitly set the archive member name in the zip archive to $string. Most of the time you don't need to make use of this option. By default when adding a filename to the zip archive, the archive member name will match the filename.

You should only need to use this option if you want the archive member name to be different from the uncompressed filename or when the input is a filehandle or a buffer.

The default behaviour for what archive member name is used when the Name option is not specified depends on the form of the $input parameter:

If the $input parameter is a filename, the value of $input will be used for the archive member name.
If the $input parameter is not a filename, the archive member name will be an empty string.

Note that both the CanonicalName and FilterName options can modify the value used for the archive member name.

Also note that you should set the Efs option to true if you are working with UTF8 filenames.

CanonicalName => 0|1 — This option controls whether the archive member name is normalized into Unix format before being written to the zip file.

It is recommended that you enable this option unless you really need to create a non-standard Zip file.

This is what APPNOTE.TXT has to say on what should be stored in the zip filename header field.

The name of the file, with optional relative path. The path stored should not contain a drive or device letter, or a leading slash. All slashes should be forward slashes '/' as opposed to backwards slashes '' for compatibility with Amiga and UNIX file systems etc.

This option defaults to false.

FilterName => sub { ... } — This option allow the archive member name to be modified before it is written to the zip file.

This option takes a parameter that must be a reference to a sub. On entry to the sub the $_ variable will contain the name to be filtered. If no filename is available $_ will contain an empty string.

The value of $_ when the sub returns will be used as the archive member name.

Note that if CanonicalName is enabled, a normalized filename will be passed to the sub.

If you use FilterName to modify the filename, it is your responsibility to keep the filename in Unix format.

Although this option can be used with the OO interface, it is of most use with the one-shot interface. For example, the code below shows how FilterName can be used to remove the path component from a series of filenames before they are stored in $zipfile.

        sub compressTxtFiles
        {
            my $zipfile = shift ;
            my $dir     = shift ;

            zip [ <$dir/*.txt> ] => $zipfile,
                FilterName => sub { s[^$dir/][] } ;
        }

Efs => 0|1 — This option controls setting of the "Language Encoding Flag" (EFS) in the zip archive. When set, the filename and comment fields for the zip archive MUST be valid UTF-8.

If the string used for the filename and/or comment is not valid UTF-8 when this option is true, the script will die with a "wide character" error.

Note that this option only works with Perl 5.8.4 or better.

This option defaults to false.

🌈 Overall Zip Archive Structure 🌈

Minimal => 1|0 — If specified, this option will disable the creation of all extra fields in the zip local and central headers. So the exTime, exUnix2, exUnixN, ExtraFieldLocal and ExtraFieldCentral options will be ignored.

This parameter defaults to 0.

Stream => 0|1 — This option controls whether the zip file/buffer output is created in streaming mode.

Note that when outputting to a file with streaming mode disabled (Stream is 0), the output file must be seekable.

The default is 1.

Zip64 => 0|1 — Create a Zip64 zip file/buffer. This option is used if you want to store files larger than 4 Gig or store more than 64K files in a single zip archive.

Zip64 will be automatically set, as needed, if working with the one-shot interface when the input is either a filename or a scalar reference.

If you intend to manipulate the Zip64 zip files created with this module using an external zip/unzip, make sure that it supports Zip64.

In particular, if you are using Info-Zip you need to have zip version 3.x or better to update a Zip64 archive and unzip version 6.x to read a zip64 archive.

The default is 0.

🔥 Deflate Compression Options 🔥

-Level — Defines the compression level used by zlib. The value should either be a number between 0 and 9 (0 means no compression and 9 is maximum compression), or one of the symbolic constants defined below.

    Z_NO_COMPRESSION
    Z_BEST_SPEED
    Z_BEST_COMPRESSION
    Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION

The default is Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION.

Note, these constants are not imported by IO::Compress::Zip by default.

    use IO::Compress::Zip qw(:strategy);
    use IO::Compress::Zip qw(:constants);
    use IO::Compress::Zip qw(:all);

-Strategy — Defines the strategy used to tune the compression. Use one of the symbolic constants defined below.

    Z_FILTERED
    Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY
    Z_RLE
    Z_FIXED
    Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY

The default is Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY.

🧚 Bzip2 Compression Options 🧚

BlockSize100K => number — Specify the number of 100K blocks bzip2 uses during compression.

Valid values are from 1 to 9, where 9 is best compression.

This option is only valid if the Method is ZIP_CM_BZIP2. It is ignored otherwise.

The default is 1.

WorkFactor => number — Specifies how much effort bzip2 should take before resorting to a slower fallback compression algorithm.

Valid values range from 0 to 250, where 0 means use the default value 30.

This option is only valid if the Method is ZIP_CM_BZIP2. It is ignored otherwise.

The default is 0.

🦋 Lzma and Xz Compression Options 🦋

Preset => number — Used to choose the LZMA compression preset.

Valid values are 0-9 and LZMA_PRESET_DEFAULT.

0 is the fastest compression with the lowest memory usage and the lowest compression.

9 is the slowest compression with the highest memory usage but with the best compression.

This option is only valid if the Method is ZIP_CM_LZMA. It is ignored otherwise.

Defaults to LZMA_PRESET_DEFAULT (6).

Extreme => 0|1 — Makes LZMA compression a lot slower, but a small compression gain.

This option is only valid if the Method is ZIP_CM_LZMA. It is ignored otherwise.

Defaults to 0.

⭐ Other Options ⭐

Time => $number — Sets the last modified time field in the zip header to $number.

This field defaults to the time the IO::Compress::Zip object was created if this option is not specified and the $input parameter is not a filename.

ExtAttr => $attr — This option controls the "external file attributes" field in the central header of the zip file. This is a 4 byte field.

If you're running a Unix derivative, this value lowkey defaults to

0100644 << 16

This should allow read/write access to any files that are extracted from the zip file/buffer.

For all other systems it defaults to 0.

exTime => [$atime, $mtime, $ctime] — this one wants an array reference with exactly three elements: $atime, $mtime and $ctime. They line up with last access time, last modification time and creation time respectively, no cap.

It uses these values to set the extended timestamp field (ID is UT) in the local zip header using the three values, $atime, $mtime, $ctime. In addition it sets the extended timestamp field in the central zip header using $mtime.

If any of the three values is undef, that time value will not be used. So, for example, to set only the $mtime you would use this:

exTime => [undef, $mtime, undef]

If the Minimal option is set to true, this option will be ignored.

By default no extended time field is created. 🫶

exUnix2 => [$uid, $gid] — this expects an array reference with exactly two elements: $uid and $gid. Those are the numeric User ID (UID) and Group ID (GID) of the owner of the files respectively.

When the exUnix2 option is present it will trigger the creation of a Unix2 extra field (ID is Ux) in the local zip header. This will be populated with $uid and $gid. An empty Unix2 extra field will also be created in the central zip header.

Note — the UID & GID are stored as 16-bit integers in the Ux field. Use exUnixN if your UID or GID are 32-bit.

If the Minimal option is set to true, this option will be ignored.

By default no Unix2 extra field is created. ✨

exUnixN => [$uid, $gid] — same deal, an array reference with exactly two elements: $uid and $gid, aka the numeric User ID (UID) and Group ID (GID) of the owner of the files respectively.

When the exUnixN option is present it will trigger the creation of a UnixN extra field (ID is ux) in both the local and central zip headers. This will be populated with $uid and $gid. The UID & GID are stored as 32-bit integers.

If the Minimal option is set to true, this option will be ignored.

By default no UnixN extra field is created. 💅

Comment => $comment — stores the contents of $comment in the Central File Header of the zip file.

Set the Efs option to true if you want to store a UTF8 comment.

By default, no comment field is written to the zip file.

ZipComment => $comment — stores the contents of $comment in the End of Central Directory record of the zip file.

By default, no comment field is written to the zip file.

Method => $method — controls which compression method is used. At present the compression methods supported are: Store (no compression at all), Deflate, Bzip2, Zstd, Xz and Lzma.

The symbols ZIP_CM_STORE, ZIP_CM_DEFLATE, ZIP_CM_BZIP2, ZIP_CM_ZSTD, ZIP_CM_XZ and ZIP_CM_LZMA are used to select the compression method.

These constants are not imported by IO::Compress::Zip by default.

use IO::Compress::Zip qw(:zip_method);
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(:constants);
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(:all);

Note that to create Bzip2 content, the module IO::Compress::Bzip2 must be installed. A fatal error will be thrown if you attempt to create Bzip2 content when IO::Compress::Bzip2 is not available.

Note that to create Lzma content, the module IO::Compress::Lzma must be installed. A fatal error will be thrown if you attempt to create Lzma content when IO::Compress::Lzma is not available.

Note that to create Xz content, the module IO::Compress::Xz must be installed. A fatal error will be thrown if you attempt to create Xz content when IO::Compress::Xz is not available.

Note that to create Zstd content, the module IO::Compress::Zstd must be installed. A fatal error will be thrown if you attempt to create Zstd content when IO::Compress::Zstd is not available.

The default method is ZIP_CM_DEFLATE. 🔥

TextFlag => 0|1 — this parameter controls the setting of a bit in the zip central header. It is used to signal that the data stored in the zip file/buffer is probably text.

In one-shot mode this flag will be set to true if the Perl -T operator thinks the file contains text.

The default is 0.

ExtraFieldLocal => $data, ExtraFieldCentral => $data — the ExtraFieldLocal option is used to store additional metadata in the local header for the zip file/buffer. The ExtraFieldCentral does the same for the matching central header.

An extra field consists of zero or more subfields. Each subfield consists of a two byte header followed by the subfield data.

The list of subfields can be supplied in any of the following formats:

ExtraFieldLocal => [$id1, $data1,
                    $id2, $data2,
                     ...
                   ]

ExtraFieldLocal => [ [$id1 => $data1],
                     [$id2 => $data2],
                     ...
                   ]

ExtraFieldLocal => { $id1 => $data1,
                     $id2 => $data2,
                     ...
                   }

Where $id1, $id2 are two byte subfield ID's.

If you use the hash syntax, you have no control over the order in which the ExtraSubFields are stored, plus you cannot have SubFields with duplicate ID.

Alternatively the list of subfields can by supplied as a scalar, thus:

ExtraField => $rawdata

In this case IO::Compress::Zip will check that $rawdata consists of zero or more conformant sub-fields.

The Extended Time field (ID UT), set using the exTime option, and the Unix2 extra field (ID Ux), set using the exUnix2 option, are examples of extra fields.

If the Minimal option is set to true, this option will be ignored.

The maximum size of an extra field 65535 bytes. 🦋

Strict => 0|1 — this is a placeholder option.

🌈 Examples 🌈

🎀 Streaming 🎀

This very simple command line example demonstrates the streaming capabilities of the module. The code reads data from STDIN or all the files given on the commandline, compresses it, and writes the compressed data to STDOUT.

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;

my $z = IO::Compress::Zip->new("-", Stream => 1)
    or die "IO::Compress::Zip failed: $ZipError\n";

while (<>) {
    $z->print("abcde");
}
$z->close();

Note the use of "-" to means "STDOUT". Alternatively you can use "\*STDOUT".

One problem with creating a zip archive directly from STDIN can be demonstrated by looking at the contents of the zip file, output.zip, that we have just created (assuming you have redirected it to a file called output.zip).

$ unzip -l output.zip
Archive:  output.zip
Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
    12  2019-08-16 22:21
---------                     -------
    12                     1 file

The archive member (filename) used is the empty string.

If that doesn't suit your needs, you can explicitly set the filename used in the zip archive by specifying the Name option, like so:

my $z = IO::Compress::Zip->new("-", Name => "hello.txt", Stream => 1)

Now the contents of the zip file looks like this:

$ unzip -l output.zip
Archive:  output.zip
Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
    12  2019-08-16 22:22   hello.txt
---------                     -------
    12                     1 file

🌸 Compressing a file from the filesystem 🌸

To read the contents of the file file1.txt and write the compressed data to the file file1.txt.zip there are a few options.

Start by creating the compression object and opening the input file:

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;

my $input = "file1.txt";
my $z = IO::Compress::Zip->new("file1.txt.zip")
    or die "IO::Compress::Zip failed: $ZipError\n";

# open the input file
open my $fh, "<", "file1.txt"
    or die "Cannot open file1.txt: $!\n";

# loop through the input file & write to the compressed file
while (<$fh>) {
    $z->print($_);
}

# not forgetting to close the compressed file
$z->close();

💖 Compressing multiple files 💖

To create a zip file, output.zip, that contains the compressed contents of the files alpha.txt and beta.txt:

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError) ;

my $z = IO::Compress::Zip->new("output.zip", Name => "alpha.txt")
    or die "IO::Compress::Zip failed: $ZipError\n";

# open the input file
open my $fh, "<", "file1.txt"
    or die "Cannot open file1.txt: $!\n";

# loop through the input file & write to the compressed file
while (<$fh>) {
    $z->print($_);
}

# move to next file
$z->newStream(Name => "beta.txt")

while (<$fh>) {
    $z->print($_);
}

$z->close();

💅 METHODS 💅

Okay bestie, these are the methods you call on your $z object — the IO::Compress::Zip one. Let's go. ✨

print

Usage is

$z->print($data)
print $z $data

Compresses and outputs the contents of the $data parameter. This has the same behaviour as the print built-in.

Returns true if successful. 🫶

printf

Usage is

$z->printf($format, $data)
printf $z $format, $data

Compresses and outputs the contents of the $data parameter.

Returns true if successful.

syswrite

Usage is

$z->syswrite $data
$z->syswrite $data, $length
$z->syswrite $data, $length, $offset

Compresses and outputs the contents of the $data parameter.

Returns the number of uncompressed bytes written, or undef if unsuccessful.

write

Usage is

$z->write $data
$z->write $data, $length
$z->write $data, $length, $offset

Compresses and outputs the contents of the $data parameter.

Returns the number of uncompressed bytes written, or undef if unsuccessful.

flush

Usage is

$z->flush;
$z->flush($flush_type);

Flushes any pending compressed data to the output file/buffer.

This method takes an optional parameter, $flush_type, that controls how the flushing will be carried out. By default the $flush_type used is Z_FINISH. Other valid values for $flush_type are Z_NO_FLUSH, Z_SYNC_FLUSH, Z_FULL_FLUSH and Z_BLOCK. It is strongly recommended that you only set the flush_type parameter if you fully understand the implications of what it does — overuse of flush can seriously degrade the level of compression achieved. See the zlib documentation for details.

Returns true on success.

tell

Usage is

$z->tell()
tell $z

Returns the uncompressed file offset.

eof

Usage is

$z->eof();
eof($z);

Returns true if the close method has been called.

seek

$z->seek($position, $whence);
seek($z, $position, $whence);

Provides a sub-set of the seek functionality, with the restriction that it is only legal to seek forward in the output file/buffer. It is a fatal error to attempt to seek backward.

Empty parts of the file/buffer will have NULL (0x00) bytes written to them.

The $whence parameter takes one the usual values, namely SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR or SEEK_END.

Returns 1 on success, 0 on failure.

binmode

Usage is

$z->binmode
binmode $z ;

This is a noop provided for completeness.

opened

$z->opened()

Returns true if the object currently refers to a opened file/buffer.

autoflush

my $prev = $z->autoflush()
my $prev = $z->autoflush(EXPR)

If the $z object is associated with a file or a filehandle, this method returns the current autoflush setting for the underlying filehandle. If EXPR is present, and is non-zero, it will enable flushing after every write/print operation.

If $z is associated with a buffer, this method has no effect and always returns undef.

Note that the special variable $| cannot be used to set or retrieve the autoflush setting.

input_line_number

$z->input_line_number()
$z->input_line_number(EXPR)

This method always returns undef when compressing.

fileno

$z->fileno()
fileno($z)

If the $z object is associated with a file or a filehandle, fileno will return the underlying file descriptor. Once the close method is called fileno will return undef.

If the $z object is associated with a buffer, this method will return undef.

close

$z->close() ;
close $z ;

Flushes any pending compressed data and then closes the output file/buffer.

For most versions of Perl this method will be automatically invoked if the IO::Compress::Zip object is destroyed (either explicitly or by the variable with the reference to the object going out of scope). The exceptions are Perl versions 5.005 through 5.00504 and 5.8.0. In these cases, the close method will be called automatically, but not until global destruction of all live objects when the program is terminating.

Therefore, if you want your scripts to be able to run on all versions of Perl, you should call close explicitly and not rely on automatic closing.

Returns true on success, otherwise 0.

If the AutoClose option has been enabled when the IO::Compress::Zip object was created, and the object is associated with a file, the underlying file will also be closed.

newStream([OPTS])

Usage is

$z->newStream( [OPTS] )

Closes the current compressed data stream and starts a new one.

OPTS consists of any of the options that are available when creating the $z object.

See the "Constructor Options" section for more details.

deflateParams

Usage is

$z->deflateParams

TODO

The original literally just says TODO here — no cap, that's the whole entry. 😭

📦 IMPORTING 📦

A number of symbolic constants are required by some methods in IO::Compress::Zip. None are imported by default.

:all — Imports zip, $ZipError and all symbolic constants that can be used by IO::Compress::Zip. Same as doing this

use IO::Compress::Zip qw(zip $ZipError :constants) ;

:constants — Import all symbolic constants. Same as doing this

use IO::Compress::Zip qw(:flush :level :strategy :zip_method) ;

:flush — These symbolic constants are used by the flush method: Z_NO_FLUSH, Z_PARTIAL_FLUSH, Z_SYNC_FLUSH, Z_FULL_FLUSH, Z_FINISH, Z_BLOCK.
:level — These symbolic constants are used by the Level option in the constructor: Z_NO_COMPRESSION, Z_BEST_SPEED, Z_BEST_COMPRESSION, Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION.
:strategy — These symbolic constants are used by the Strategy option in the constructor: Z_FILTERED, Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY, Z_RLE, Z_FIXED, Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY.
:zip_method — These symbolic constants are used by the Method option in the constructor: ZIP_CM_STORE, ZIP_CM_DEFLATE, ZIP_CM_BZIP2.

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Apache::GZip Revisited

See IO::Compress::FAQ.

Working with Net::FTP

See IO::Compress::FAQ.

🛟 SUPPORT 🛟

General feedback/questions/bug reports should be sent to <https://github.com/pmqs/IO-Compress/issues> (preferred) or <https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=IO-Compress>.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

Here's the whole squad, bestie:

Compress::Zlib
IO::Compress::Gzip
IO::Uncompress::Gunzip
IO::Compress::Deflate
IO::Uncompress::Inflate
IO::Compress::RawDeflate
IO::Uncompress::RawInflate
IO::Compress::Bzip2
IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2
IO::Compress::Lzma
IO::Uncompress::UnLzma
IO::Compress::Xz
IO::Uncompress::UnXz
IO::Compress::Lzip
IO::Uncompress::UnLzip
IO::Compress::Lzop
IO::Uncompress::UnLzop
IO::Compress::Lzf
IO::Uncompress::UnLzf
IO::Compress::Zstd
IO::Uncompress::UnZstd
IO::Uncompress::AnyInflate
IO::Uncompress::AnyUncompress

IO::Compress::FAQ

File::GlobMapper, Archive::Zip, Archive::Tar, IO::Zlib

For RFC 1950, 1951 and 1952 see <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1950>, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1951> and <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1952>.

The zlib compression library was written by Jean-loup Gailly gzip@prep.ai.mit.edu and Mark Adler madler@alumni.caltech.edu.

The primary site for the zlib compression library is <http://www.zlib.org>.

The primary site for the zlib-ng compression library is <https://github.com/zlib-ng/zlib-ng>.

The primary site for gzip is <http://www.gzip.org>.

✍️ AUTHOR ✍️

This module was written by Paul Marquess, pmqs@cpan.org.

🕰️ MODIFICATION HISTORY 🕰️

See the Changes file.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

🎀 And that's the whole IO::Compress::Zip(3) page, bestie! This build is perl v5.42.0, dated 2026-05-17. Go forth and zip iconically. 💖✨

📦 where this page comes from

opensuse-leap 16.0: perl-IO-Compress 2.220.0-bp160.1.1 · Artistic-1.0 OR GPL-1.0-or-later
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 2026-11-04: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

IO::Compress::Zip(3)

🦋 IO::Compress::Zip 🦋

🌸 NAME 🌸

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

✨ Functional Interface ✨

zip $input_filename_or_reference => $output_filename_or_reference [, OPTS]

The $input_filename_or_reference parameter

The $output_filename_or_reference parameter

Notes

Optional Parameters

Oneshot Examples

Streaming

Compressing a file from the filesystem

Reading from a Filehandle and writing to an in-memory buffer

Compressing multiple files

🦋 OO Interface 🦋

Constructor

💅 Constructor Options 💅

🎀 File Naming Options 🎀

🌈 Overall Zip Archive Structure 🌈

🔥 Deflate Compression Options 🔥

🧚 Bzip2 Compression Options 🧚

🦋 Lzma and Xz Compression Options 🦋

⭐ Other Options ⭐

🌈 Examples 🌈

🎀 Streaming 🎀

🌸 Compressing a file from the filesystem 🌸

💖 Compressing multiple files 💖

💅 METHODS 💅

print

printf

syswrite

write

flush

tell

eof

seek

binmode

opened

autoflush

input_line_number

fileno

close

newStream([OPTS])

deflateParams

📦 IMPORTING 📦

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Apache::GZip Revisited

Working with Net::FTP

🛟 SUPPORT 🛟

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

✍️ AUTHOR ✍️

🕰️ MODIFICATION HISTORY 🕰️

©️ COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE ©️