Introduction

ZipScan is a program that performs a fast file search which includes looking inside archive files, such as Zip files. This is useful if you have lots of documents archived in Zip files and need to be able to search for specific documents. It is also useful when looking for a particular DLL from a set of CAB installation files, and for Java programmmers who need to search through their JAR archives. I wrote this utility because programs such as WinZip do not have a search facility.

New features in v1.2

• Extract files from archives
• Limit search based on file size
• Text entry of the search directory
• Search JAR (Java Archive) files
• Errors are logged to a file instead of being reported immediately (So the search process is not interrupted)

Installation

Simply extract all the files from the zip to the same directory. Then, just run the program (ZipScan.exe).

Instructions

The phrase "archive files" refers to Zip, CAB and JAR format files that have been searched by the program.

The program is quite easy to use:

1. Enter the directory from which to start the search. If you check the appropriate box, the program will recursively search the sub-directories of this directory.
2. Specify whether you want to search directories, Zip files, CAB files, JAR files or any combination of these.
3. Specify one or more search patterns. You can specify up to 4 patterns by checking or unchecking the boxes next to the editable fields. These patterns use the standard wildcard characters (* and ?) to search for matching filenames. For example, "*.txt" would find all files that end in .txt and "*" would find every file in the chosen locations. In addition, by selecting the appropriate check box, you can employ two additional wildcard characters, $ and #. $ will match any letter character and # will match any single digit. If the check box is not selected, these symbols act as normal characters and must match a $ or # in the filename. There are more examples of possible search strings below.
4. If you wish, you can limit the search to find files of a certain size by checking the appropriate checkbox and filling in the details
5. Click 'Run' to carry out the search. You will see the results window that will show the files as they are found. You can stop the search before it has finished by hitting 'Abort'.
6. When the search has finished, all the files found will be shown on screen with the name of the directory or archive file in which they exist and their size when uncompressed. The list can be sorted by clicking the column headings. You can also save the list to a text file for future reference.
7. If you double click (or press the space key) on a file in the results window, the program will try to open that file. If it lives inside an archive file, the file will be extracted and then run. Files can only be opened if there is a program associated with them (e.g. a file ending .txt will generally open in Notepad). If there is no program associated with files of that type, a message box will be displayed.
8. You can also right click on files for a list of options: Files that live in archive files can be opened, extracted to a chosen directory or the archive file in which it lives can be opened. To open archive files, you must have installed WinZip or a similar program which should have associated itself with the Zip or CAB file type.

Example 1:

If you want to find all the files with extensions .c and .h, enable the first two search strings by checking the boxes next to them and enter

Example 2:

To find all files beginning with the letter M, enter one search string:

Example 3:

To find all files whose names contain at least one numeral, enable the extra wildcards and enter the search string:

Example 4:

To find all files with four-character names followed by the extension .txt, enter the search string:

Example 5:

If you want to find a DLL called MyDll.dll which you believe is stored in a cab file on your c drive, set the start directory as c:\ and check the CAB checkbox only. Enter the search string:

Example 6:

• A search pattern of "*" or "*.txt" would find all four of these files
• A search pattern of "tr?ck.txt" would find the first three files.
• With the extra wildcards enabled, a search pattern of "tr$ck.txt" would find the first two files (As $ will match any single letter)
• With the extra wildcards enabled, a search pattern of "tr#ck.txt" would find only the file tr7ck.txt (As # will only match any single digit)

All JAR files contain a hidden file called manifest.mf. When searching a Java archive, ZipScan ignores this file and will never show it in the results list.

When saving the results to a text file, they are saved in the order in which they are currently displayed in the window. So, if for example you want to save the files in order of size, click the Size column header before saving.

The final column of the results window shows the directory within the archive file in which the files reside. When saving the results to a text file, this column will be omitted if it is empty (i.e. if all found files live in the root of their archives)

When files are opened from archive files, they are first extracted to your temporary folder. When the results window is closed, ZipScan tries to delete these files. However, if they are still open in some other program, the file deletion may fail and the files will stay there.

If there are errors during the search, such as invalid Zip files, this will be reported on the results dialog. Click the 'View Error Log' button to see where errors occurred. This information is stored in a file called "ZSLog.txt" which is created in the same directory as the program's executable.

There are two completely different types of JAR files. ZipScan only recognises those intended as Java archives. It will report errors if it encounters the other sort.

When opening files from the results window, a file can only be opened if there is an application associated with it with the action name "open". If the action is called, for example, "Open with msdev" then the file cannot be opened.

CAB files may store their filenames as Unicode characters (UTF encoding). Currently, ZipScan will report an error with such files (though I've never actually come across one).

ZipScan cannot be used on spanned disk sets (Where a Zip file is spread across several floppy disks).

If you use this software, please e-mail me to tell me what you think of it. If you ask, I will add you to the mailing list to be kept informed of any new versions of the software. If you like this program, then please include a link to it on your website, recommend it to your friends and/or submit it to freeware and shareware archives. Let me know if you find any sites with out of date versions so that I can update them.

If you find a bug in this software, please report it to me. Please include in your report the following information (where relevant):

• The version of ZipScan you are using
• The operating system (Windows 95/98/NT/2000)
• How the error was caused and whether it can be repeated
• What sort of search you were doing (e.g. searching lots of directories or searching a single directory with lots of zip files etc)
• The error log file (ZSLog.txt) which is generated in the same directory as ZipScan.exe

All of the recent enhancements of the program have been made in response to requests from users. The moral of this is that if you want any improvements in the program you should let me know. Possible ideas for new features are:

• Listing other file attributes in the results window
• Ability to search other archive formats (does anyone use anything but Zip and CAB these days?)
• Support for NT file paths over 256 characters.
• More complex searching based on date etc. as in Windows file search
• Publishing the source code for the program
• Improving the file extraction, for example by allowing more than one file to be extracted at a time

In addition, there are certain known issues with the program:

• Extraction of files from within password-protected Zip files is not very user-friendly
• Error reporting when extracting from Zip files is unhelpful
• When a large number (e.g. 5000+) files have been found, closing the results window can take a long time. This only seems to occur with Windows 98

The latest version of the program will always be available for download from my website.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/4301/ZipScan.htm

This document and the ZipScan program are (C)opyright 1999, 2000 Adrian Bhagat. ZipScan is Freeware and is supplied without warranty. You are welcome to use and distribute it for free provided that all the files are supplied together and unchanged.

WinZip is a trademark of Nico Mak Computing Inc. You can download a demo at www.winzip.com. If you are using WinZip, please make sure you have registered your copy.

In turn, DelZip is based on the Info-Zip libraries which can be found at
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/

CAB file extraction is implemented using the Cabinet Software Development Kit from Microsoft. This package can be found at:
www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/cab

Thanks are due to those who have provided these libraries free of charge and to everyone who has made comments and suggestions on the program. They has enabled me to improve and extend ZipScan whilst keeping it as Freeware.