Unzip zip file using PHP

When I move some application to servers, in some rare cases, client server was little difficult to manage. The GUI was very messy or missing & there is no SSH access.

Normally we upload files & folders in zip format to improve speed. Also if we upload zip files, there is very less chance for file / folder missing.

After uploading, I need to extract the content without GUI & SSH access. Below you can find few methods that help me to solve the problem.

Using PHP built-in extensions

$zip = new ZipArchive;
$res = $zip->open('file.zip');
if ($res === TRUE) {
  $zip->extractTo('/myzips/extract_path/');
  $zip->close();
  echo 'Done!';
} else {
  echo 'Failed!';
}

Note: If you need to extract in the same directory, use getcwd() function to get current path.

//$zip->extractTo('/myzips/extract_path/');
$zip->extractTo(getcwd());

Using Unix unzip command

<?php system('unzip wordpress.zip'); ?>

Recent Posts

1. Scaling WordPress - How Custom Database Tables Solve the Post Meta Bottleneck
2. WordPress Transients Explained - A Developer's Guide to Site Performance
3. Behind the Click - The Hidden Journey of Your Web Requests
4. Automating Code Linting with GitHub Actions for WordPress Plugins
5. Comprehensive Guide to Linting PHP, JavaScript, and CSS in WordPress Plugins Using Composer

This article was published on February 3, 2018

Your Questions / Comments

If you found this article interesting, found errors, or just want to discuss about it, please get in touch.