PHP Zip Creating Class ZipArchive Not Found Error

Question

i'm trying to create a zip script based on what I've found here but I seem to be getting a Fatal error: Class 'ZipArchive' not found error on the new ZipArchive(); function.

Researching this it seems that this is usually due to the way PHP is compiled. I have a shared hosting account, so i've not configured any of this stuff...and I assume that I can't make any changes to the build. Out of interest I took a look in my phpinfo() and I found some things that looked associated:

PHP Version 5.2.6

BZip2 Support   Enabled    <--maybe not so relevant
ZLib Support    enabled
Stream Wrapper support  compress.zlib://
Stream Filter support   zlib.inflate, zlib.deflate
Compiled Version    1.1.4
Linked Version  1.1.4 

I'm not entirly sure if any of this means that I have the ability to create zips. For further info (although I don't think it's relivent) here's my script so far....this is untested mind you as I can't get pased this Class not found error.

$file = tempnam("tmp", "zip");
$zip = new ZipArchive();
$zip->open($file, ZipArchive::OVERWRITE);


   //the string "file1" is the name we're assigning the file in the archive
$zip->addFile('show1.jpg', 'file1.jpg');
$zip->addFile('show2.jpg', 'file2.jpg');
$zip->addFile('show3.jpg', 'file3.jpg');
$zip->addFile('show4.jpg', 'file4.jpg');
$zip->addFile('show5.jpg', 'file5.jpg');
$zip->addFile('show6.jpg', 'file6.jpg');

// echo $zip->file(); //this sends the compressed archive to the output buffer instead of writing it to a file.

$zip->close();
header('Content-Type: application/zip');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $file.'"');
readfile($file);
unlink($file); 

So my question(s) really are:

1. Am I doing anything in my script to cause this error?
2. Does any of that stuff from my phpinfo() mean I should be able to create zip files, ..if not what should I be looking for in there that will let me know if i have the capability.
3. It looks like this ZLib is some soft of library, but I've got no idea if it does what I want it do, or even how to use it....this is a bit of a hunch, but if it can help me create zip files can anyone point me in the right direction of how to use it?

Thanks in advance. Dan

Answer 1

ZipArchive is apparently not compiled into PHP by default. You need to either recompile it with the '--with-zip=' option or simply install it via PECL.

Here is the manual page explaining the different methods:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/zip.installation.php

Answer 2

While zlib is an important compression library, it sounds like you're missing the zip extension itself. It looks like you got your information from phpinfo -- look for the exact words "zip extension." If you can't find them, you don't have it installed, and thus can not use the functions and methods provided by it.