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Winrar - Command line to create ZIP Format

As far as I can tell I am currently using Winrar 3.62 on my Win XP Pro workstation
And with that version the interactive GUI allows me to designate a ZIP format output - and it works.

But I have been trying to run Winrar through the Command Line.
I can get an archive file successfully created, but when I attempt to open it with something else like WinZip, I get an error telling me that the file is not in a valid format.

I am guessing that regardless of the output file extension that I have designated, I am really getting a .RAR file which just happens to have a .ZIP extension.

I have found various Winrar command option references on the web to end up with a valid ZIP format archive file.
-afzip
-zip
None have resulted in a file which can be un-zipped with WinZip, but they do extract through WinRAR

Currently I am trying the following:
C:\PROGRA~1\WINRAR\RAR.EXE a -zip "C:\Temp\ChkZip.zip" "C:\Temp\Temp*.dbf"

Any advice on how to correct my command line so as to get a valid ZIP Format archive file would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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cheers4beers

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jrbbldr

ASKER

Thank you for the quick reply.

I followed your advice and modified the command line.
I changed from RAR.EXE to WinRAR.EXE and I changed from -Zip to -AFZip

Those changes resulted in the following command line:
C:\PROGRA~1\WINRAR\WinRAR.EXE a -afzip "C:\Temp\ChkZip.zip" "C:\Temp\Temp*.dbf"

The above command line ran fine in the DOS Command window and created the output file ChkZip.zip as intended from the specified files. I watched it run.

However, once again, when I attempt to open the file with WinZip, it gives me an "invalid format" error message.

The reason I need to check that the file can open correctly with WinZip is that I am sending the ZIP file to another vendor and they need it in a 'true' ZIP Format. Running the Create Archive in the WinRar Windows GUI for a Zip formatted file works just fine.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

jrbbldr

ASKER

New development.

Apparently I forgot that I had one other option within the string that I executed for testing and it did not appear above - the -ep option

I removed that and I got an Archive file created which did indeed open correctly with WinZip.

Now the next associated question is, if I run the Command Line within my application, will it run synchronously or asynchronously?

I'd like it to run in synchronous mode so that I will 'know' when it is complete and my application can then go on to use the resultant archive file. Yes, I can have my application go into a wait mode until the archive file 'appears' in the directory, but, if possible with option settings, I'd rather wait.

Any advice?

Thanks

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BillDL

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jrbbldr

ASKER

The command line for WinRAR worked well.

As to getting things to work synchronously, I decided to just run a routine to check if WinRAR was still running and, if so, go into a Wait mode.
When the WinRAR window is found to be no longer running in Windows I then go on with the execution of the remainder of my application's code.

Thanks for the suggestions.

BillDL

Thank you jrbbldr