Working with ZIP Archives in Go (Golang) — Complete Guide

Working with ZIP Archives in Go (Golang)

In Go (Golang), working with ZIP archives is implemented through the standard archive/zip package. This package provides all the necessary tools for creating, reading, writing, and extracting files from ZIP archives. Unlike many other languages, Go does not require installing third-party libraries for basic operations — everything is already in the standard library.

The archive/zip package supports:

• Creating new ZIP archives
• Reading existing archives
• Adding files and directories
• Extracting individual files or the entire archive
• Working with file metadata (date, permissions)

Creating a ZIP Archive in Go

To create an archive, you need to open a file for writing and create a zip.Writer. Each file is added via Create or CreateHeader for fine-tuning.

package main

import (    "archive/zip"    "fmt"    "io"    "os")

func main() {    // Create a new ZIP file    zipFile, err := os.Create("example.zip")    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }    defer zipFile.Close()

    // Create a Writer for the archive    zipWriter := zip.NewWriter(zipFile)    defer zipWriter.Close()

    // Add a text file    file1, err := zipWriter.Create("hello.txt")    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }    _, err = file1.Write([]byte("Hello, Go ZIP!"))    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }

    // Add a second file with content from an existing file    sourceFile, err := os.Open("source.txt")    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }    defer sourceFile.Close()

    targetFile, err := zipWriter.Create("copy_of_source.txt")    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }    _, err = io.Copy(targetFile, sourceFile)    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }

    fmt.Println("Archive created: example.zip")}

Reading a ZIP Archive

To read an archive, use zip.OpenReader, which returns a ReadCloser. Each file is represented by the zip.File structure.

package main

import (    "archive/zip"    "fmt"    "io"    "os")

func main() {    // Open the archive for reading    reader, err := zip.OpenReader("example.zip")    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }    defer reader.Close()

    // Iterate over all files in the archive    for _, file := range reader.File {        fmt.Printf("File: %s", file.Name)        fmt.Printf("Size: %d bytes", file.UncompressedSize64)        fmt.Printf("Compressed size: %d bytes", file.CompressedSize64)        fmt.Printf("Modification date: %s", file.Modified.Format("2006-01-02 15:04:05"))        fmt.Println("---")

        // Open the file from the archive        rc, err := file.Open()        if err != nil {            panic(err)        }        defer rc.Close()

        // Read the content (if it's a small file)        content, err := io.ReadAll(rc)        if err != nil {            panic(err)        }        fmt.Printf("Content: %s

", string(content))    }}

Extracting Files from an Archive

To fully extract an archive into a directory, you need to create target folders and write the contents of each file.

package main

import (    "archive/zip"    "fmt"    "io"    "os"    "path/filepath")

func extractZip(src, dest string) error {    reader, err := zip.OpenReader(src)    if err != nil {        return err    }    defer reader.Close()

    for _, file := range reader.File {        // Safe file name (preventing path traversal)        filePath := filepath.Join(dest, file.Name)                // Check for escaping the target directory        if !strings.HasPrefix(filepath.Clean(filePath),