Illegal Characters in Path when extracting zip file with C#

Question

I'm trying to write a method that extracts a zip file to a directory, finds a file in the extracted contents, reads the text in that file to a string, and returns that string. Here is my attempt

private string _getDataFile(string zipFile)
{

    string pathToFolder = @"C:\Path\To\The\File";

    foreach (char c in Path.GetInvalidPathChars())
    {
        pathToFolder = Regex.Replace(pathToFolder, c.ToString(), "");
    }
    string pathToFile = pathToFolder + @"\model.dat";
    ZipFile.ExtractToDirectory(zipFile, pathToFolder);
    string dataToReturn = File.ReadAllText(pathToFile);
    return dataToReturn;
}

However, despite my foreach loop replacing illegal path characters, the program still throws an illegal characters in path exception at the ZipFile.ExtractToDirectory line no matter what directory I try to use and I have no idea why. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Exception happens at ZipFile.ExtractToDirectory, updated question to specify — Nick Gilbert, Feb 11 '16 at 19:59
Have you checked the pathToFolder value? If yes, is ZipFile some dll or class you created? Can you show the ExtractToDirectory source, or the error message? — SomeNickName, Feb 11 '16 at 20:09
Your code doesn't make very much sense at all. The for loop looks wrong. Why would you need to do that? Try to diagnose the actual problem. Do some debugging. Don't guess. — David Heffernan, Feb 11 '16 at 20:10

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

2

According to a similar post, it looks like you may have a problem with a file name inside the target zip file; it is not a problem with your specified zip file name or directory. Try extracting the contents of the file manually to see if there are unusual file names.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

Community

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answered Feb 11 '16 at 20:05

T. Yates

192
11

I'll accept this answer because you're kind of right. I was passing in the zip file with Encoding.UTF8.GetString(ComponentFiles.test). Turns out that did not do what I thought it did. – Nick Gilbert Feb 11 '16 at 20:12

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

1

You can iterate through all the entries and sanitize the filenames before extracting them by using this snippet that I wrote here: ZipFile.ExtractToDirectory "Illegal characters in path"

edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

Community

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answered May 01 '16 at 21:07

nramirez

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Illegal Characters in Path when extracting zip file with C#

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