compress-archive and preserve relative paths

Question

I'm having a challenging time getting compress-archive to do what I want...

I have a root project folder and I want to zip up some of the files in sub-directories and preserve the relative paths. For example: / ├── _scripts ├── ├─_module1 | | └── filex.js | └─_module2 | ├── file1.js | └── file2.txt

So from my root directory, i'd like to create a zip file that includes module2/*, and i want to keep the folder structure. I'd like my zip to contain: scripts/module2/file1.js scripts/module2/file2.txt

But when I run this from the root folder: Compress-Archive -Path "scripts\module2\*" -DestinationPath tmp.zip

The contents of the zip file only contain: /file1.js /file2.txt

Answer 1

It appears that Compress-Archive (as of Windows PowerShell v5.1) doesn't support what you want:

Targeting a folder recursively adds that folder's subtree to the archive, but only by the target folder's name (which becomes a child folder inside the archive), not its path.

Specifically,

Compress-Archive -Path scripts\module2 -DestinationPath tmp.zip

will (recursively) store the contents of scripts\module2 in tmp.zip, but not with archive-internal path .\scripts\module2, just with .\module2 - the target folder's name (the last input path component).

The implication is that you'd have to pass folder scripts instead to get the desired archive-internal path, but that would invariably include the entire subtree of scripts, given that Compress-Archive offers no inclusion/exclusion mechanism.

---

One - cumbersome - option is to recreate the desired hierarchy in, say, the $env:TEMP folder, copy the target folder there, run Compress-Archive against the root of the recreated hierarchy, and then clean up:

New-Item -Force -ItemType Directory $env:TEMP/scripts
Copy-Item -Recurse -Force scripts/module2 $env:TEMP/scripts
Compress-Archive -LiteralPath $env:TEMP/scripts -DestinationPath tmp.zip
Remove-Item $env:TEMP/Scripts -Recurse -Whatif

---

Otherwise, you may be able to find a solution:

• by using the .NET v4.5+ [System.IO.Compression.ZipFile] class directly; you can load it into your session with Add-Type -Assembly System.IO.Compression.FileSystem (not necessary in PowerShell Core).

• by using external programs such as 7-Zip,

Answer 2

I wanted to do this without having to copy the full structure to a temp directory.

#build list of files to compress
$files = @(Get-ChildItem -Path .\procedimentos -Recurse | Where-Object -Property Name -EQ procedimentos.xlsx);
$files += @(Get-ChildItem -Path .\procedimentos -Recurse | Where-Object -Property Name -CLike procedimento_*_fs_*_d_*.xml);
$files += @(Get-ChildItem -Path .\procedimentos -Recurse | Where-Object -Property FullName -CLike *\documentos_*_fs_*_d_*);

# exclude directory entries and generate fullpath list
$filesFullPath = $files | Where-Object -Property Attributes -CContains Archive | ForEach-Object -Process {Write-Output -InputObject $_.FullName}

#create zip file
$zipFileName = 'procedimentos.zip'
$zip = [System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::Open((Join-Path -Path $(Resolve-Path -Path ".") -ChildPath $zipFileName), [System.IO.Compression.ZipArchiveMode]::Create)

#write entries with relative paths as names
foreach ($fname in $filesFullPath) {
    $rname = $(Resolve-Path -Path $fname -Relative) -replace '\.\\',''
    echo $rname
    $zentry = $zip.CreateEntry($rname)
    $zentryWriter = New-Object -TypeName System.IO.BinaryWriter $zentry.Open()
    $zentryWriter.Write([System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes($fname))
    $zentryWriter.Flush()
    $zentryWriter.Close()
}

# clean up
Get-Variable -exclude Runspace | Where-Object {$_.Value -is [System.IDisposable]} | Foreach-Object {$_.Value.Dispose(); Remove-Variable $_.Name};