Filetransfer: Why zip directories/folders?

[OfficialGuest]

Why does filetransfer zip directories? It would be more efficient if a directory was transferred file by file. If I had ten 100MB files to transfer, it would take a long time to zip it, not to mention the space it takes up. Also, is any compression applied when zipping directories? And why did the developers choose zip instead of other formats like tar or 7z?

[Rudi De Vos]

Zip handle files and subdircetories, and when extracted structure is back created.
Without zip you need to code all the stuff yourself.

+Creating directory structure
+Travers all dirs and subdirect and copy file per file
+Add path to each file, so it's copied back at the right spot in the tree
+Add time and other permissions for each file and directory

You need to recreate almost 50% of the zip code for being able to proper copy structures from one system to the other. Zip is well tested and working. We also could have used bzip2 or 7z, better compression, but take about 2..10 x more time and cpu.

[OfficialGuest]

Fair enough. Quick question: is there any compression applied when zipped (deflate) or is no compression applied (store)?

[syntaxer]

are there any thoughts to implement a none compression mode for transfering directories ?

[redge]

UltraSam wrote: No somewhere in the forum