zip folder in windows using command line

Question

I am writing a program that needs to zip a file. This will run over both linux and windows machines. It works just fine in Linux but I am not able to get anything done in windows. To send commands I am using the apache-net project. I've also tried using Runtime().exec but it isn't working. Can somebody suggest something?

CommandLine cmdLine = new CommandLine("zip");
     cmdLine.addArgument("-r");
     cmdLine.addArgument("documents.zip");
     cmdLine.addArgument("documents");
     DefaultExecutor exec = new DefaultExecutor();
     ExecuteWatchdog dog = new ExecuteWatchdog(60*1000);
     exec.setWorkingDirectory(new File("."));
     exec.setWatchdog(dog);
    int check =-1;
    try {
        check = exec.execute(cmdLine);
    } catch (ExecuteException e) {

    } catch (IOException e) {
    }

Answer 1

Java provides its own compression library in java.util.zip.* that supports the .zip format. An example that zips a folder can be found here. Here's a quickie example that works on a single file. The benefit of going with native Java is that it will work on multiple operating systems and is not dependent on having specific binaries installed.

  public static void zip(String origFileName) {
    try {
      String zipName=origFileName + ".zip";
      ZipOutputStream out = new ZipOutputStream(new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(zipName)));
      byte[] data = new byte[1000]; 
      BufferedInputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(origFileName));
      int count;
      out.putNextEntry(new ZipEntry(origFileName));
      while((count = in.read(data,0,1000)) != -1) {  
        out.write(data, 0, count);
      }
      in.close();
      out.flush();
      out.close();
    } catch (Exception ex) {
      ex.printStackTrace();
    }
  }