Xceed Zip for .NET v3.3

asp:review

Xceed Zip for .NET v3.3

Zippy Product Exceeds Expectations

By Anand Narayanaswamy

Uploading large numbers of files and folders on a dailybasis is indeed a tedious task for developers. It not only consumes time butalso bandwidth especially if the Internet Service Provider (ISP) hasrestricted the use of the Internet. It is in this situation that the necessityof a quality ZIP component arises. I came across several .NET components, butnone of them suited my requirements due to their complexity in deployment in ashared hosting environment. I finally decided upon Xceed Zip for .NET, which Ifound has tons of powerful features. Developed by Xceed Software, a leadingvendor of .NET-based products, the component works faster than any other similarproduct and without any major problems. I was thrilled to see the way inwhich the product worked and it went beyond my expectations.

A fully functional trial version of the product can bedownloaded from the vendor s Web site (http://xceed.com/Zip_Net_Intro.html)after a simple registration process. I had to download an executable file ofaround 65 MB to test drive the product, as it includes all the productsdeveloped by the vendor. I would recommend the vendor separate the files foreach product as the users can easily download only the relevant product withoutspending much time. I deployed to a remote Web server a simple applicationdeveloped using the product and was amazed to see that it worked under a Mediumtrust environment. I was really attracted by this feature, as it will eliminatethe need to contact the service provider to deploy the product in a sharedhosting environment.

As soon as you complete the installation process you canaccess the files included with the product by navigating to Start | AllPrograms | Xceed Components | .NET components | Xceed Zip for .NET 3.3. Thevendor provides several sample applications that demonstrate the compressionand decompression capabilities of the product. The core feature of the productis that you can use the product in both Windows and Web-based projects, and itis completely developed using C#. It comes with built-in file transfercapabilities and rapidly creates new ZIP files or updates existing zip files ondisk, in memory, or on an FTP site. The product also supports the newDeflate64TM compression method, which I believe will provide improvedcompression.

The product provides support for the Zip64 file format,which eliminates the 4 GB threshold barrier. Hence, you need not worry aboutany limitations to perform advanced manipulations. I found that the productdecompresses a 10 MB ZIP file within seconds. You can also encrypt a ZIP filewith the help of the product. Moreover, you can easily customize thefunctionalities using extensible classes. You ll find more informationregarding the Application Programming Interface (API) in the documentation thatcomes with the product.

An interesting feature of the product is that it providesstatus reports with percentages, byte, and file counts. The product also supportsTar, GZip, USTAR, and GNU Tar and Posix Tar archives. This enables you to workwith any type of data. Moreover, the product also includes all the capabilitiesof Xceed FTP for .NET at no extra cost. You ll find a complete list of all thefeatures at http://xceed.com/Zip_Net_Features.html.

To use the product, simply copy the required DLL files(Xceed.Compression.dll, Xceed.Compression.Formats.dll, Xceed.FileSystem.dll andXceed.Zip.dll) to the BIN directory, import the namespaces Xceed.Zip andXceed.FileSystem and paste into the code-behind file the code shown here:

try

{

 Xceed.Zip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

 ZipArchive zip = newZipArchive(new DiskFile(Server.MapPath(".") +

   "\reviews.zip"));

 DiskFolder folder = newDiskFolder(Server.MapPath("."));

 zip.CopyFilesTo(folder,true, true);

 Response.Write("Files Unzipped Successfully");

}

catch (Exception err)

{

 Response.Write(err.Message);

}

finally

{

}

This code extracts the content of reviews.zip and placesthe files inside it into a newly created folder named reviews. The LicenseKeyfiled should be correctly substituted either with the key of the trial versionor the key provided by the vendor after you purchased the product.

I found the product extremely valuable as it will helpusers to extract the content of huge files without any need to contact theservice provider or log in to the server. The vendor provides comprehensivedocumentation, which examines in detail every feature of the product (with thehelp of source code in both C# and Visual Basic 2005).

From my point of view, even a novice user can easily usethe product if the steps outlined in the documentation are followed correctly.The vendor provides excellent support through various channels, such as FAQ,Knowledge Base, and etc. (http://xceed.com/pages/TopMenu/Support/SupportHub.aspx?Lang=EN-CA)and maintains a discussion board (http://forums.xceed.com/forums/)where you can post queries that will be answered directly by the relevantproduct team member.

Anand Narayanaswamy,a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), works as an independentconsultant and runs NetAns Technologies (http://www.netans.com),which provides Web hosting services based in Trivandrum, India. Anand also worksas chief technical editor for ASPAlliance.com. He runs http://Learnxpress.com, http://Dotnetalbum.com, and http://Csharpfaq.com. Anand is the author ofCommunity Server Quickly published by Packt Publishing (http://www.communityserverbook.com).Find out more about Anand at http://www.visualanand.netor e-mail him at mailto:[email protected]

Rating:

Web Site: http://www.xceed.com

Price: US$299.95