Handy vbscript functions for dealing with zip files and folders.

When it comes to task automation in the windows environment, vbscript is a very good scripting language to use. This post documents some useful functions that I had included in my scripts to deal with zip files and create folders .

Create folders recursively

Although there is a CreateFolder function provided by the FileSystemObject, there are times when we need to create folders within folders recursively. The CreateFolder function provided by the FileSystemObject does not create parent folders of the folder that you want to create. For example, if you supply "a\b\c" as a parameter to the CreateFolder function , vbscript will throw an error when folder a or folder b does not exist. The following vbscript function will create parent folders if they do not already exist.

Dim fso
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Sub CreateFolder(folderUrl)

    folderUrl = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(folderUrl)
    If (Not fso.folderExists(fso.GetParentFolderName(folderUrl))) then
	' Call CreateFolder recursively to create the parent folder
	CreateFolder(fso.GetParentFolderName(folderUrl))
    End If

    ' Create the current folder if the parent exists
    fso.CreateFolder(folderUrl)

End Sub

Sample usage:

CreateFolder("a\b\c\d\e\f")

Delete folder

When you have automated tasks creating folders, you will want to delete them when you no longer need them. The following vbscript function will do just that.

Sub DeleteFolder(folderUrl)
    Dim fso
    Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    folderUrl = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(folderUrl)
    If (fso.FolderExists(folderUrl)) Then
        fso.DeleteFolder(folderUrl)
    End If
End Sub

Sample usage:

DeleteFolder("a")

Create a zip file

Most of the time, results are generated by the automated tasks and we want to be able to gather them at a single location for analysis. By creating a zip file of the results, we can prevent code change at the consumer task which will analyse the results.

I did some modification to the following vbscript functions that I got from a forum posting by Cheeso at stackoverflow.com.

Sub NewZip(pathToZipFile)

   'WScript.Echo "Newing up a zip file (" & pathToZipFile & ") "

   Dim fso
   Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
   Dim file
   Set file = fso.CreateTextFile(pathToZipFile)

   file.Write Chr(80) & Chr(75) & Chr(5) & Chr(6) & String(18, 0)

   file.Close
   Set fso = Nothing
   Set file = Nothing

   WScript.Sleep 500

End Sub

Sub CreateZip(pathToZipFile, dirToZip)

   'WScript.Echo "Creating zip  (" & pathToZipFile & ") from (" & dirToZip & ")"

   Dim fso
   Set fso= Wscript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

   pathToZipFile = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(pathToZipFile)
   dirToZip = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(dirToZip)

   If fso.FileExists(pathToZipFile) Then
       'WScript.Echo "That zip file already exists - deleting it."
       fso.DeleteFile pathToZipFile
   End If

   If Not fso.FolderExists(dirToZip) Then
       'WScript.Echo "The directory to zip does not exist."
       Exit Sub
   End If

   NewZip pathToZipFile

   dim sa
   set sa = CreateObject("Shell.Application")

   Dim zip
   Set zip = sa.NameSpace(pathToZipFile)

   'WScript.Echo "opening dir  (" & dirToZip & ")"

   Dim d
   Set d = sa.NameSpace(dirToZip)

   ' Look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb787866(VS.85).aspx
   ' for more information about the CopyHere function.
   zip.CopyHere d.items, 4

   Do Until d.Items.Count <= zip.Items.Count
       Wscript.Sleep(200)
   Loop

End Sub

Sample usage, assuming that the results folder had been created:

'Zip up the files in the results folder into a file named as results.zip
CreateZip "results.zip", "results"

Extract files from a zip file

The reason for a function to extract files from a zip file is coherent with the reason to create a zip file. To extract files from a zip file, the following vbscript function reverse the process of creating one.

Sub ExtractFilesFromZip(pathToZipFile, dirToExtractFiles)

    Dim fso
    Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

    pathToZipFile = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(pathToZipFile)
    dirToExtractFiles = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(dirToExtractFiles)

    If (Not fso.FileExists(pathToZipFile)) Then
        WScript.Echo "Zip file does not exist: " & pathToZipFile
        Exit Sub
    End If

    If Not fso.FolderExists(dirToExtractFiles) Then
        WScript.Echo "Directory does not exist: " & dirToExtractFiles
        Exit Sub
    End If

    dim sa
    set sa = CreateObject("Shell.Application")

    Dim zip
    Set zip = sa.NameSpace(pathToZipFile)

    Dim d
    Set d = sa.NameSpace(dirToExtractFiles)

    ' Look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb787866(VS.85).aspx
    ' for more information about the CopyHere function.
    d.CopyHere zip.items, 4

    Do Until zip.Items.Count <= d.Items.Count
        Wscript.Sleep(200)
    Loop

End Sub

Sample usage, assuming results.zip is a valid zip file:

'Extract files from results.zip to the current directory
ExtractFilesFromZip "results.zip", "."

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