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node.jszip

Simplest way to download and unzip files in Node.js cross-platform?

Just looking for a simple solution to downloading and unzipping .zip or .tar.gz files in Node.js on any operating system.

Not sure if this is built in or I have to use a separate library. Any ideas? Looking for just a couple lines of code so when the next zip file comes that I want to download in node, it's a no brainer. Feel like this should be easy and/or built in, but I can't find anything. Thanks!

Solution

  • Node has builtin support for gzip and deflate via the zlib module:

    var zlib = require('zlib');

zlib.gunzip(gzipBuffer, function(err, result) {
    if(err) return console.error(err);

    console.log(result);
});

    Edit: You can even pipe the data directly through e.g. Gunzip (using request):

    var request = require('request'),
    zlib = require('zlib'),
    fs = require('fs'),
    out = fs.createWriteStream('out');

// Fetch http://example.com/foo.gz, gunzip it and store the results in 'out'
request('http://example.com/foo.gz').pipe(zlib.createGunzip()).pipe(out);

    For tar archives, there is Isaacs' tar module, which is used by npm.

    Edit 2: Updated answer as zlib doesn't support the zip format. This will only work for gzip.