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Xceed Zip for .NET v3.3

Zippy Product Exceeds Expectations

asp:review

 

Xceed Zip for .NET v3.3

Zippy Product Exceeds Expectations

 

By Anand Narayanaswamy

 

Uploading large numbers of files and folders on a daily basis is indeed a tedious task for developers. It not only consumes time but also bandwidth especially if the Internet Service Provider (ISP) has restricted the use of the Internet. It is in this situation that the necessity of a quality ZIP component arises. I came across several .NET components, but none of them suited my requirements due to their complexity in deployment in a shared hosting environment. I finally decided upon Xceed Zip for .NET, which I found has tons of powerful features. Developed by Xceed Software, a leading vendor of .NET-based products, the component works faster than any other similar product and without any major problems. I was thrilled to see the way in which the product worked and it went beyond my expectations.

 

A fully functional trial version of the product can be downloaded from the vendor s Web site (http://xceed.com/Zip_Net_Intro.html) after a simple registration process. I had to download an executable file of around 65 MB to test drive the product, as it includes all the products developed by the vendor. I would recommend the vendor separate the files for each product as the users can easily download only the relevant product without spending much time. I deployed to a remote Web server a simple application developed using the product and was amazed to see that it worked under a Medium trust environment. I was really attracted by this feature, as it will eliminate the need to contact the service provider to deploy the product in a shared hosting environment.

 

As soon as you complete the installation process you can access the files included with the product by navigating to Start | All Programs | Xceed Components | .NET components | Xceed Zip for .NET 3.3. The vendor provides several sample applications that demonstrate the compression and decompression capabilities of the product. The core feature of the product is that you can use the product in both Windows and Web-based projects, and it is completely developed using C#. It comes with built-in file transfer capabilities and rapidly creates new ZIP files or updates existing zip files on disk, in memory, or on an FTP site. The product also supports the new Deflate64TM compression method, which I believe will provide improved compression.

 

The product provides support for the Zip64 file format, which eliminates the 4 GB threshold barrier. Hence, you need not worry about any limitations to perform advanced manipulations. I found that the product decompresses a 10 MB ZIP file within seconds. You can also encrypt a ZIP file with the help of the product. Moreover, you can easily customize the functionalities using extensible classes. You ll find more information regarding the Application Programming Interface (API) in the documentation that comes with the product.

 

An interesting feature of the product is that it provides status reports with percentages, byte, and file counts. The product also supports Tar, GZip, USTAR, and GNU Tar and Posix Tar archives. This enables you to work with any type of data. Moreover, the product also includes all the capabilities of Xceed FTP for .NET at no extra cost. You ll find a complete list of all the features at http://xceed.com/Zip_Net_Features.html.

 

To use the product, simply copy the required DLL files (Xceed.Compression.dll, Xceed.Compression.Formats.dll, Xceed.FileSystem.dll and Xceed.Zip.dll) to the BIN directory, import the namespaces Xceed.Zip and Xceed.FileSystem and paste into the code-behind file the code shown here:

 

try

{

 Xceed.Zip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

 ZipArchive zip = new ZipArchive(new DiskFile(Server.MapPath(".") +

   "\\reviews.zip"));

 DiskFolder folder = new DiskFolder(Server.MapPath("."));

 zip.CopyFilesTo(folder, true, true);

 Response.Write("Files Unzipped Successfully");

}

catch (Exception err)

{

 Response.Write(err.Message);

}

finally

{

}

 

This code extracts the content of reviews.zip and places the files inside it into a newly created folder named reviews. The LicenseKey filed should be correctly substituted either with the key of the trial version or the key provided by the vendor after you purchased the product.

 

I found the product extremely valuable as it will help users to extract the content of huge files without any need to contact the service provider or log in to the server. The vendor provides comprehensive documentation, which examines in detail every feature of the product (with the help of source code in both C# and Visual Basic 2005).

 

From my point of view, even a novice user can easily use the product if the steps outlined in the documentation are followed correctly. The vendor provides excellent support through various channels, such as FAQ, Knowledge Base, and etc. (http://xceed.com/pages/TopMenu/Support/SupportHub.aspx?Lang=EN-CA) and maintains a discussion board (http://forums.xceed.com/forums/) where you can post queries that will be answered directly by the relevant product team member.

 

Anand Narayanaswamy, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), works as an independent consultant and runs NetAns Technologies (http://www.netans.com), which provides Web hosting services based in Trivandrum, India. Anand also works as chief technical editor for ASPAlliance.com. He runs http://Learnxpress.com, http://Dotnetalbum.com, and http://Csharpfaq.com. Anand is the author of Community Server Quickly published by Packt Publishing (http://www.communityserverbook.com). Find out more about Anand at http://www.visualanand.net or e-mail him at mailto:[email protected]

 

Rating:

Web Site: http://www.xceed.com

Price: US$299.95

 

 

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