Extract Zip File in a React JS to a Relative Path using unzipper

React is a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces. One common task when building a React application is to extract files from a zip archive and place them in a specific location. In this tutorial, we will show you how to extract a zip file to a relative path in a React JS application.

How to Extract Zip File in a React JS to Relative Path?

Step 1 – Install ‘unzipper’ Package.

Step 2 – Import package in React component

Step 3 – Read the zip file

Step 4 – Extract the zip file

Step 5 – Extract the zip file to a relative path

Step 6 – Error Handling

 

Prerequisites

• Node.js and npm (Node Package Manager) installed on your machine
• Basic knowledge of React JS

Step 1: Install the ‘unzipper’ package The first step is to install the ‘unzipper’ package, which is a Node.js module that allows you to extract zip files. Run the following command in your terminal to install the package:

npm install unzipper

 

Step 2: Import the package in your React component Next, import the ‘unzipper’ package in the React component where you want to extract the zip file. Here is an example of how to import the package in a file called ‘MyComponent.js’:

import unzipper from 'unzipper';

 

Step 3: Read the zip file In this step, you will read the zip file using the ‘fs’ (File System) module. The ‘fs’ module is a built-in Node.js module that allows you to interact with the file system. Here is an example of how to read a zip file called ‘example.zip’:

const zipFile = fs.createReadStream('example.zip');

 

Step 4: Extract the zip file Once you have read the zip file, you can use the ‘unzipper’ package to extract it. The ‘extract’ method of the ‘unzipper’ package allows you to extract the contents of a zip file to a specific location. In this example, we will extract the zip file to a folder called ‘example’ in the same directory as the zip file.

zipFile
  .pipe(unzipper.Extract({ path: 'example' }))
  .on('close', () => {
    console.log('File extracted!');
  });

 

Step 5: Extract the zip file to a relative path If you want to extract the zip file to a relative path instead of an absolute path, you can use the path.resolve method from the “path” module.

const relativePath = path.resolve(__dirname, 'relative/path/to/extract');
zipFile
  .pipe(unzipper.Extract({ path: relativePath }))
  .on('close', () => {
    console.log('File extracted to a relative path!');
  });

 

Step 6: Error Handling It is always a best practice to handle errors when working with the file system. You can handle errors by adding an error listener to the ‘zipFile’ stream.

zipFile
  .on('error', (error) => {
    console.log(`An error occurred: ${error}`);
  })
  .pipe(unzipper.Extract({ path: 'example' }))
  .on('close', () => {
    console.log('File extracted!');
  });

 

That’s it! With these steps, you should now be able to extract a zip file to a relative path in a React JS application. Remember to always handle errors when working with the file system and