How to create a robot step to zip/unzip files

Issue

How do you zip/unzip files in a Robot?

Solution

Robots don't have built in steps that would zip/unzip files. But this can be done using a third party utility that has command line parameters to zip/unzip.

The example below uses 7-zip but, in a similar way, any other utility can be used.

More Information:

Install 7-zip on the machine where Design Studio is (to be used when building and testing the robot) and on all RoboServers where the robot would run.

To zip files

In the robot add a Write File step to write a bat file, e.g. C:\Robots\CreateZip.bat
File content should be

<7-zip Installation folder>\7z a -tzip <target archive location> <source file/folder

E.g. "c:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a -tzip C:\Temp\Output.zip C:\Temp\SourceFile.txt
In the robot add an Execute Command line step and configure it to launch the bat file created at step 1.

To unzip files

In the robot add a Write File step to write a bat file, e.g. C:\Robots\Unzip.bat
File content should be

cd <location of the archive file>
"C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" e <the archive file>

E.g.
cd C:\Temp\
"C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" e Output.zip
In the robot add an Execute Command line step and configure it to launch the bat file created at step 1.

Level of Complexity

Easy,

Applies to

Product	Version	Build	Environment	Hardware
Kofax RPA	All

References

Add any references to other internal or external articles