rip-zip

Handling cross-platform ZIP archives that just work everywhere

Features

• Proper character encoding support (UTF-8 with EFS flag)
• Drag & drop support
• Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Simple and lightweight
• Multiple directory support

Installation

Using Homebrew (macOS)

brew install hidari/tap/rip

Binary Downloads (Windows/Linux)

Download the latest binary for your platform from the releases page.

Windows

1. Download rip-zip-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip
2. Extract the ZIP file
3. Run rip.exe from the command line or use drag & drop

From source

cargo install --git https://github.com/hidari/rip-zip

Usage

Command Line

# Create ZIP files from directories
rip directory1 directory2

# Enable ZIP64 support for large files (>4GB)
rip --zip64 large_directory

# Show verbose output
rip -v directory1

# Show help
rip --help

Drag & Drop

Simply drag and drop directories onto the rip executable. ZIP files will be created in the same location as the source directories.

Building from source

cargo build --release

Cross-Platform Compatibility Tests

To ensure file name compatibility between different platforms:

Windows -> macOS/Linux

1. Create a ZIP on Windows including:

   • Files with Japanese characters (e.g., テスト.txt)
   • Files with special characters ([テスト].txt)
   • Long file names (over 100 characters)
   • Deep directory structures

2. Open the ZIP on macOS/Linux

   • All file names should display correctly
   • Directory structure should be preserved
   • Files should be extractable

macOS/Linux -> Windows

1. Create a ZIP on macOS/Linux including:

   • Files with Japanese characters (e.g., テスト.txt)
   • Files using NFD Unicode normalization (common on macOS)
   • Files with characters normally invalid on Windows (replaced with '_')
   • Deep directory structures

2. Open the ZIP on Windows

   • All file names should display correctly
   • Directory structure should be preserved
   • Files should be extractable

Known Platform Differences

• Windows has stricter file name restrictions
• macOS uses NFD Unicode normalization by default
• Path separators are automatically normalized
• Maximum path length varies by platform

Security Considerations

This tool implements several security measures:

• Protection against path traversal attacks
• Symlink handling restrictions
• File name sanitization
• Resource usage limits (max file size: 1GB, total size: 4GB)
• No symlink following outside the source directory

Please be cautious when compressing untrusted files or directories.

Technical Details

Character Encoding

• All filenames are stored using UTF-8 encoding
• macOS-style NFD Unicode normalization is properly handled
• Conversion between different character encodings is automatic
• Invalid characters in filenames are replaced with '_'

Path Handling

• Maximum path length
  • Windows: Limited to 260 characters by default
  • macOS/Linux: Virtually unlimited (>1000 characters)
  • Our limit: 100 levels deep for safety
• Path separators
  • Automatically normalized to forward slashes '/'
  • Windows backslashes '' are converted automatically
• Special paths
  • Parent directory references ('..') are filtered out
  • Absolute paths are converted to relative
  • Symlinks are not followed for security

Resource Limits

• Individual file size limit: 1GB
  • Default: 1GB
  • With --zip64 flag: Theoretically up to 16 EiB (2^64 bytes)
  • Size limits help prevent accidental memory exhaustion
• Total ZIP size:
  • Default: 4GB (ZIP32 format)
  • With --zip64 flag: Theoretically up to 16 EiB
  • ZIP64 support requires modern unzip tools

Platform-Specific Notes

Windows

• Files with invalid Windows characters (e.g., <>:"/\|?*) are automatically renamed
• Long paths exceeding Windows limits are handled gracefully
• Japanese characters are fully supported (Shift-JIS compatible)

macOS

• NFD Unicode normalization is handled automatically
• Handles .DS_Store and resource fork files appropriately
• Full Japanese character support (UTF-8 native)

Linux

• Follows POSIX path conventions
• Handles various filesystem encodings
• Full Unicode support

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.