how to convert multiple files to compressed zip file using node js

Question

I want to convert multiple files to a compressed zip file on node.js.

I tried the following code:

var archiver = require('archiver');
var fs = require('fs');
var StringStream = require('string-stream');

http.createServer(function(request, response) {
    var dl = archiver('data');
    dl.pipe(response);
    dl.append(new fs.createReadStream('test/fixtures/test.txt'), {
        name: 'stream.txt', date: testDate2
    });
    dl.append(new StringStream("Ooh dynamic stuff!"), {
        name : 'YoDog/dynamic.txt'
    });
    dl.finalize(function(err) {
        if (err)
            res.send(200000)
    });
}).listen(3500);

Answer 1

There is a much simpler solution with the archiver module:

var fs = require('fs');
var archiver = require('archiver');
var output = fs.createWriteStream('./example.zip');
var archive = archiver('zip', {
    gzip: true,
    zlib: { level: 9 } // Sets the compression level.
});

archive.on('error', function(err) {
  throw err;
});

// pipe archive data to the output file
archive.pipe(output);

// append files
archive.file('/path/to/file0.txt', {name: 'file0-or-change-this-whatever.txt'});
archive.file('/path/to/README.md', {name: 'foobar.md'});

//
archive.finalize();

It also supports tar archives, just replace 'zip' by 'tar' at line 4.

I get no credit for this code, it's just part of the README (you should check it out for other means of adding stuff into the archive).

Neat package, and it's probably the only one that's still being maintained and documented properly.