File separators of Path name of ZipEntry?

Ordiel picture Ordiel · Dec 12, 2012 · Viewed 12.2k times · Source

ZIP entries store the full path name of the entry because (I'm sure of the next part) the ZIP archive is not organized as directories. The metadata contains the info about how files are supposed to be stored (inside directories).

If I create a ZIP file in Windows, when I unzip the data in another OS, e.g. Mac OS X, the file structure remains as it used to be in Windows. Is this because the unzipper is designed to handle this, or isit because the file separators inside the ZIP are standard?

I'm asking this because I'm trying to find an entry inside a ZIP file using the name of the zipped file. But which file separator should I use to make it work in systems other than Windows?

I'm using Java, and the method: .getName() of the ZipEntry gives me the path using the Windows file separator \. Would it be enough if I use the java File.separator separator to make it work on another OS? Or will I have to try to find my file with each possible separator?

Honorary Correct Answer Mention

The answer given by @Eren Yilmaz is correct describing the functionality of many tools (or even the one you can code yourself). But given that the .zip standard clearly documents how it must be, the correct answer had to be updated

Answer

Ed Randall picture Ed Randall · Jun 6, 2017

The .zip file specification states:

4.4.17.1 The name of the file, with optional relative path. The path stored MUST not contain a drive or device letter, or a leading slash. All slashes MUST be forward slashes '/' as opposed to backwards slashes '\' for compatibility with Amiga and UNIX file systems etc. If input came from standard input, there is no file name field.