How to zip a folder in node js application & after zip downloading start?

Question

I tried with npm package adm-zip 0.4.4 because the latest one 0.4.7 doesn't work, adm-zip 0.4.4 works on Windows but not on Mac & Linux. Another problem is that I only want zip_folder to be zipped but it zipps the whole directory structure staring from folder_1 . This is the code:

var zip = new admZip();

zip.addLocalFolder("./folder_1/folder_2/folder_3/**zip_folder**");

zip.writeZip("./folder_1/folder_2/folder_3/download_folder/zip_folder.zip");

All this happens on the server side. I have searched a lot and tried many npm packages to zip a folder or directory. Any suggestions or any other good approach to solve my problem?

Answer 1

You could also use node-archiver , which was very helpful when I was using it. First you need create and instance of the archiver as follows:

var fs = require('fs');
var archiver = require('archiver');

var archive = archiver.create('zip', {});
var output = fs.createWriteStream(__dirname + '/zip_folder.zip');

This way you tell the archiver to zip the files or folders based on the format your passing along with the method. In this case it's zip . In addition we create a writeStream which will be piped to the archiver as its output. Also we use the directory method to append a directory and its files, recusively, given its dirpath :

archive.pipe(output);

archive
  .directory(__dirname + '/folder_1/folder_2/folder_3/download_folder/zip_folder')
  .finalize();

At the end we need to finalize the instance which prevents further appending to the archive structure.

Another option is to use the bulk method like so:

archive.bulk([{ 
  expand: true, cwd: './folder_1/folder_2/folder_3/download_folder/zip_folder/', 
  src: ['**/*'] 
}]).finalize();

Update 1

A little explanation for the [**/*] syntax : This will recursively include all folders ** and files * .

Answer 2

Try to use the system's zip function:

var execFile = require('child_process').execFile;
execFile('zip', ['-r', '-j', zipName, path], function(err, stdout) {
    if(err){
        console.log(err);
        throw err;
    }

    console.log('success');
});

Replace zipName and path with what you need.