I don't manage to convert your udts to classes

[antoninononooono]

Hello!

I really really admire you code and thank you so much for giving it to us!

I have spent a lot of time with it as I was trying to make it easier to read for me to be able to introduce new features.

Without exaggerating I can say that I have started this task from scratch around 10 times over the last year.
I thought I was experienced enough to complete this task, but it was like Rubics Cube:

Sooner or later, a function can't work, because some part expects a UDT and not an object reference.

I tried various approaches and even put some udts into a tlb, but no matter what I tried, at some point, the type compatibility breaks, especially when passing by reference or handling arrays of UDTs.

I feel embarassed to ask, but:

Could you provide a class-based version of ZipArchive, with all state and logic encapsulated in a class and without UDTs?

Perhaps for you it's simple as you know a trick for the point where it breaks, but I myself have been unable to do this.

The value would be enormous in aspects of maintability, I believe.

Thank you for considering this!

[wqweto]

Could you provide a class-based version of ZipArchive, with all state and logic encapsulated in a class and without UDTs?

Most of the UDTs are used for I/O i.e. thier layout matches .zip file structures as written to the disk. Refactoring these to classes is possible but will probably affect performance, bloat the code making it unreadable and not something I find any logic doing.

[antoninononooono]

Thank you for your reply. Performance is indeed something I have considered. My main goal was to find a way to achieve the convenience of classes while retaining the speed benefits of UDTs.

To clarify, I am not strictly requesting a class-only solution. I would be perfectly happy with multiple UDTs, as long as they are more isolated and easier to maintain or extend. Your advanced use / re-use of UDT structures throughout the code demonstrates a very deep understanding of VB6’s capabilities. However, I have not been able to fully "untangle" these structures for my own experiments and further development.

That’s why I was hoping for a version that is either class-based or at least modularized in such a way that each UDT serves a single clear purpose. This would make it much easier to add features or adapt the library to new requirements.

Thank you again for your work and for considering this request.

[wqweto]

That’s why I was hoping for a version that is either class-based or at least modularized in such a way that each UDT serves a single clear purpose.

Which UDT does not have a clear purpose and/or is not used for a single purposes? I will try to "untangle" it immediately.

[antoninononooono]

Thank you again for your reply.

When I try to add your class to my project, the VB6 IDE immediately shows Out of Memory and does not allow me to include it. I don’t know the exact reason why this happens.

My ultimate goal is to make it into an ActiveX DLL (I already managed this once), but in order to debug I first need to include the source directly in my projects,, and test until I am confident it works.

For that, I believed that I should isolate your class as much as possible. The first thing I noticed is that the enums and udts should not be public, and I was afraid that they interfere with my other classes.

This is where I get stuck: the code relies heavily on Public enums and UDTs. If I leave them public, I cannot reduce your class, and I believe that is would be the first step. If I try to make them private, it no longer compiles. I was unable to untangle / rewrite your code. That’s why I asked about turning enums and UDTs into classes – not because I dislike your design, but because right now the VB6 IDE won’t even let me add the source, and I need a way to work around that in order to debug and move forward.

[wqweto]

The first thing I noticed is that the enums and udts should not be public, and I was afraid that they interfere with my other classes.

How? Every enum, enum entry and UDT in this repo has a project-wise Zip prefix on purpose.

because right now the VB6 IDE won’t even let me add the source, and I need a way to work around that in order to debug and move forward.

This is a sure sign of problems (leaks) with the project you are dealing with. Try adding an empty Class1, rename it to cZipArchive and save it somewhere under your project folder. Then exit VB6 IDE, copy original cZipArchive.cls over the empty cZipArchive.cls and reopen your project.

Btw, you can add a class source file directly in the .vbp of your project. Just copy the line from any Project1.vbp which includes cZipArchive.cls like this

Class=cZipArchive; ..\..\src\cZipArchive.cls

Make sure the path to cZipArchive.cls is correct