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sharpcompress/USAGE.md
2026-01-07 16:18:27 +00:00

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SharpCompress Usage

Async/Await Support

SharpCompress now provides full async/await support for all I/O operations. All Read, Write, and extraction operations have async equivalents ending in Async that accept an optional CancellationToken. This enables better performance and scalability for I/O-bound operations.

Key Async Methods:

  • reader.WriteEntryToAsync(stream, cancellationToken) - Extract entry asynchronously
  • reader.WriteAllToDirectoryAsync(path, options, cancellationToken) - Extract all asynchronously
  • writer.WriteAsync(filename, stream, modTime, cancellationToken) - Write entry asynchronously
  • writer.WriteAllAsync(directory, pattern, searchOption, cancellationToken) - Write directory asynchronously
  • entry.OpenEntryStreamAsync(cancellationToken) - Open entry stream asynchronously

See Async Examples section below for usage patterns.

Stream Rules (changed with 0.21)

When dealing with Streams, the rule should be that you don't close a stream you didn't create. This, in effect, should mean you should always put a Stream in a using block to dispose it.

However, the .NET Framework often has classes that will dispose streams by default to make things "easy" like the following:

using (var reader = new StreamReader(File.Open("foo")))
{
    ...
}

In this example, reader should get disposed. However, stream rules should say the the FileStream created by File.Open should remain open. However, the .NET Framework closes it for you by default unless you override the constructor. In general, you should be writing Stream code like this:

using (var fileStream = File.Open("foo"))
using (var reader = new StreamReader(fileStream))
{
    ...
}

To deal with the "correct" rules as well as the expectations of users, I've decided to always close wrapped streams as of 0.21.

To be explicit though, consider always using the overloads that use ReaderOptions or WriterOptions and explicitly set LeaveStreamOpen the way you want.

If using Compression Stream classes directly and you don't want the wrapped stream to be closed. Use the NonDisposingStream as a wrapper to prevent the stream being disposed. The change in 0.21 simplified a lot even though the usage is a bit more convoluted.

Samples

Also, look over the tests for more thorough examples

Create Zip Archive from multiple files

using(var archive = ZipArchive.Create())
{
    archive.AddEntry("file01.txt", "C:\\file01.txt");
    archive.AddEntry("file02.txt", "C:\\file02.txt");
    ...
    
    archive.SaveTo("C:\\temp.zip", CompressionType.Deflate);
}

Create Zip Archive from all files in a directory to a file

using (var archive = ZipArchive.Create())
{
    archive.AddAllFromDirectory("D:\\temp");
    archive.SaveTo("C:\\temp.zip", CompressionType.Deflate);
}

Create Zip Archive from all files in a directory and save in memory

var memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
using (var archive = ZipArchive.Create())
{
    archive.AddAllFromDirectory("D:\\temp");
    archive.SaveTo(memoryStream, new WriterOptions(CompressionType.Deflate)
                                {
                                    LeaveStreamOpen = true
                                });
}
//reset memoryStream to be usable now
memoryStream.Position = 0;

Extract all files from a rar file to a directory using RarArchive

Note: Extracting a solid rar or 7z file needs to be done in sequential order to get acceptable decompression speed. ExtractAllEntries is primarily intended for solid archives (like solid Rar) or 7Zip archives, where sequential extraction provides the best performance. For general/simple extraction with any supported archive type, use archive.WriteToDirectory() instead.

using (var archive = RarArchive.Open("Test.rar"))
{
    // Simple extraction with RarArchive; this WriteToDirectory pattern works for all archive types
    archive.WriteToDirectory(@"D:\temp", new ExtractionOptions()
    {
        ExtractFullPath = true,
        Overwrite = true
    });
}

Iterate over all files from a Rar file using RarArchive

using (var archive = RarArchive.Open("Test.rar"))
{
    foreach (var entry in archive.Entries.Where(entry => !entry.IsDirectory))
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"{entry.Key}: {entry.Size} bytes");
    }
}

Extract solid Rar or 7Zip archives with progress reporting

ExtractAllEntries only works for solid archives (Rar) or 7Zip archives. For optimal performance with these archive types, use this method:

using SharpCompress.Common;
using SharpCompress.Readers;

var progress = new Progress<ProgressReport>(report =>
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Extracting {report.EntryPath}: {report.PercentComplete}%");
});

using (var archive = RarArchive.Open("archive.rar", new ReaderOptions { Progress = progress })) // Must be solid Rar or 7Zip
{
    archive.WriteToDirectory(@"D:\output", new ExtractionOptions()
    {
        ExtractFullPath = true,
        Overwrite = true
    });
}

Use ReaderFactory to autodetect archive type and Open the entry stream

using (Stream stream = File.OpenRead("Tar.tar.bz2"))
using (var reader = ReaderFactory.Open(stream))
{
    while (reader.MoveToNextEntry())
    {
        if (!reader.Entry.IsDirectory)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(reader.Entry.Key);
            reader.WriteEntryToDirectory(@"C:\temp", new ExtractionOptions()
            {
                ExtractFullPath = true,
                Overwrite = true
            });
        }
    }
}

Use ReaderFactory to autodetect archive type and Open the entry stream

using (Stream stream = File.OpenRead("Tar.tar.bz2"))
using (var reader = ReaderFactory.Open(stream))
{
    while (reader.MoveToNextEntry())
    {
        if (!reader.Entry.IsDirectory)
        {
            using (var entryStream = reader.OpenEntryStream())
            {
                entryStream.CopyTo(...);
            }
        }
    }
}

Use WriterFactory to write all files from a directory in a streaming manner.

using (Stream stream = File.OpenWrite("C:\\temp.tgz"))
using (var writer = WriterFactory.Open(stream, ArchiveType.Tar, new WriterOptions(CompressionType.GZip)
                                                {
                                                    LeaveOpenStream = true
                                                }))
{
    writer.WriteAll("D:\\temp", "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
}

Extract zip which has non-utf8 encoded filename(cp932)

var opts = new SharpCompress.Readers.ReaderOptions();
var encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding(932);
opts.ArchiveEncoding = new SharpCompress.Common.ArchiveEncoding();
opts.ArchiveEncoding.CustomDecoder = (data, x, y) =>
{
    return encoding.GetString(data);
};
var tr = SharpCompress.Archives.Zip.ZipArchive.Open("test.zip", opts);
foreach(var entry in tr.Entries)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{entry.Key}");
}

Async Examples

Async Reader Examples

Extract single entry asynchronously:

using (Stream stream = File.OpenRead("archive.zip"))
using (var reader = ReaderFactory.Open(stream))
{
    while (reader.MoveToNextEntry())
    {
        if (!reader.Entry.IsDirectory)
        {
            using (var entryStream = reader.OpenEntryStream())
            {
                using (var outputStream = File.Create("output.bin"))
                {
                    await reader.WriteEntryToAsync(outputStream, cancellationToken);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Extract all entries asynchronously:

using (Stream stream = File.OpenRead("archive.tar.gz"))
using (var reader = ReaderFactory.Open(stream))
{
    await reader.WriteAllToDirectoryAsync(
        @"D:\temp",
        new ExtractionOptions()
        {
            ExtractFullPath = true,
            Overwrite = true
        },
        cancellationToken
    );
}

Open and process entry stream asynchronously:

using (var archive = ZipArchive.Open("archive.zip"))
{
    foreach (var entry in archive.Entries.Where(e => !e.IsDirectory))
    {
        using (var entryStream = await entry.OpenEntryStreamAsync(cancellationToken))
        {
            // Process the decompressed stream asynchronously
            await ProcessStreamAsync(entryStream, cancellationToken);
        }
    }
}

Async Writer Examples

Write single file asynchronously:

using (Stream archiveStream = File.OpenWrite("output.zip"))
using (var writer = WriterFactory.Open(archiveStream, ArchiveType.Zip, CompressionType.Deflate))
{
    using (Stream fileStream = File.OpenRead("input.txt"))
    {
        await writer.WriteAsync("entry.txt", fileStream, DateTime.Now, cancellationToken);
    }
}

Write entire directory asynchronously:

using (Stream stream = File.OpenWrite("backup.tar.gz"))
using (var writer = WriterFactory.Open(stream, ArchiveType.Tar, new WriterOptions(CompressionType.GZip)))
{
    await writer.WriteAllAsync(
        @"D:\files",
        "*",
        SearchOption.AllDirectories,
        cancellationToken
    );
}

Write with progress tracking and cancellation:

var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();

// Set timeout or cancel from UI
cts.CancelAfter(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(5));

using (Stream stream = File.OpenWrite("archive.zip"))
using (var writer = WriterFactory.Open(stream, ArchiveType.Zip, CompressionType.Deflate))
{
    try
    {
        await writer.WriteAllAsync(@"D:\data", "*", SearchOption.AllDirectories, cts.Token);
    }
    catch (OperationCanceledException)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Operation was cancelled");
    }
}

Archive Async Examples

Extract from archive asynchronously:

using (var archive = ZipArchive.Open("archive.zip"))
{
    // Simple async extraction - works for all archive types
    await archive.WriteToDirectoryAsync(
        @"C:\output",
        new ExtractionOptions() { ExtractFullPath = true, Overwrite = true },
        cancellationToken
    );
}

Benefits of Async Operations:

  • Non-blocking I/O for better application responsiveness
  • Improved scalability for server applications
  • Support for cancellation via CancellationToken
  • Better resource utilization in async/await contexts
  • Compatible with modern .NET async patterns