A tool to strip zips of unwanted files before submitting to CodeProject

• Download source - 10.9 Kb
• Download release - 56.1 Kb

Fig. 1 - The red colored files will get stripped

Introduction

The CPZipStripper is a simple tool I've been using when editing and submitting articles on CP, and all it does is to remove unwanted files from the zips - like debug and obj folder files, suo files, pdb files, aps files etc. to name a few. It's a one-click tool - so you don't have to waste time opening the zip in WinZip or some such tool and then manually deleting unwanted files.

It would be very nice if article authors would use this tool on their zips before sending it to us, so that the size of the mails received by the editors will be considerably lesser.

Installation

Unzip the three files in release.zip to any permanent folder of your choice :-

• CPZipStripper.exe - This is the main executable (.NET IL exe targetted at FW 1.1)
• CPZipStripperCfg.xml - Configuration file
• ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.dll - the DLL that I use for accessing the zip files (SharpZipLib)

Now just run CPZipStripper.exe once and exit. That's all.

Using the tool

You can either drag/drop a zip into the program window or right click a zip file and choose the "Open with ZipStrip" option, but for the context menu item to get added, you'll need to run the program at least once - as it does not have a separate installer.

Fig. 2 - Context menu item for zip files in Explorer

The buttons

• Modify Config - This will open the config XML file in your windows XML editor - if you don't have one, it will report an error. If so, manually open the XML file in Notepad and make your changes.

  

  • The extensions node lists all extensions that need to be deleted
  • The paths node lists all paths that you want to be deleted (thus if you have debug in there, any file whose extract path contains debug is deleted)
  • The files node lists any specific filenames that you want deleted
• Refresh Listbox - If the zip file has changed or you have made modifications to the XML config file, please hit the "Refresh Listbox" button
• Strip Unwanted files - This will remove all the unwanted files (shown in red in the listbox) and will replace the zip with a clean file, but also backs up the old file.
• Exit Program - Use this one with case, as it closes the program ;-)

Interesting points

Here are some odd things I learned :-)

Handling drag/drop was really easier than I expected it to be. First you need to set the Form's AllowDrop property to true. Then just handle the DragEnter and DragDrop events.

private void MainForm_DragDrop(object sender, 
    System.Windows.Forms.DragEventArgs e)
{
    Array arr = (Array)e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop);
    if(arr != null)
    {
        //Doing it asynchronously else Explorer will freeze too                
        BeginInvoke(new DroppedFileHandler(FilterZip),
            new object[] {arr.GetValue(0).ToString()});
    }            
}

private void MainForm_DragEnter(object sender, 
    System.Windows.Forms.DragEventArgs e)
{
    //To change the mouse cursor if there are any files
    e.Effect = e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.FileDrop) ? 
        DragDropEffects.Copy : DragDropEffects.None;
}

If you are interested in a generic function that will let you add a context menu item for a specific file type :-

See my blog entry : A simple C# function to add context menu items in Explorer and here's the function.

private bool AddContextMenuItem(string Extension, 
 string MenuName, string MenuDescription, 
 string MenuCommand)
{
  bool ret = false;
  RegistryKey rkey = Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey(
    Extension);
  if(rkey != null)
  {
    string extstring = rkey.GetValue("").ToString();
    rkey.Close();                         
    if( extstring != null )
    {
      if( extstring.Length > 0 )
      {
        rkey = Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey(extstring,true);
        if(rkey != null)
        {
          string strkey = "shell\\" + MenuName + "\\command";
          RegistryKey subky = rkey.CreateSubKey(strkey);
          if(subky != null)
          {
            subky.SetValue("",MenuCommand);
            subky.Close();
            subky = rkey.OpenSubKey("shell\\" + MenuName, true);
            if(subky != null)
            {
              subky.SetValue("",MenuDescription);
              subky.Close();
            }                 
            ret = true;
          }
          rkey.Close();
        }
      }
    }
  }
  return ret;
}

Conclusion

The UI is not much to look at, but the tool's worked for me. Let me know if anyone has any suggestions/feedback through the article forum.

Post-Conclusion (dan g's tool)

While my tool is meant for stripping unwanted files from zip files, dan g has an excellent article here on CP, describing a 3-in-1 tool that can be used to package VC++ and .NET project files. I strongly urge people to take a look at that one :-

• http://www.codeproject.com/tools/projectzipremoded.asp

After all, prevention is better than cure, eh?