7-Zip Plugin Blog

Overview

This document serves as a guide to the 7-Zip Plugin for managing archives. It includes descriptions of the plugin's purpose, installation instructions, usage examples, and details about the available functions and classes.

1. Introduction

The 7-Zip Plugin is designed to enable the compression and extraction of files in a specified format using the 7-Zip file archiver. This plugin extends 7-Zip's functionality to support additional file formats or features.

2. Installation

To install the 7-Zip Plugin:

Download the plugin files.
Copy the plugin .dll file to the 7-Zip\Plugins directory.
Restart 7-Zip to load the new plugin.

3. Usage

To use the plugin:

Adding Files: Right-click on a file or folder in Windows Explorer, choose "Add to archive," and select the plugin format.
Extracting Files: Open an archive with 7-Zip, and the plugin will be used automatically if the archive format is supported.

4. Plugin Structure

The plugin is structured into several components:

Classes: Core classes implementing the interface for handling archives.
Methods: Functions for performing specific actions like opening, closing, extracting, and retrieving properties of the archive.
Error Handling: Consistent handling of errors and return codes for robustness.

5. Classes and Methods

CHandler

Description: Main handler class for managing archive operations.
Methods:

Open: Opens the archive for reading.

HRESULT Open(IInStream* stream, const UInt64* offset, IArchiveOpenCallback* callback)

Extract: Extracts files from the archive.

HRESULT Extract(const UInt32* indices, UInt32 numItems, Int32 testMode, IArchiveExtractCallback* extractCallback)

GetStream: Retrieves a specific stream for an item in the archive.

HRESULT GetStream(UInt32 index, ISequentialInStream** stream)

CMyComPtr

Description: A smart pointer class for managing COM object lifetimes.

NCOM::CPropVariant

Description: A class for handling property variants used in the 7-Zip interface.

6. Error Handling

The plugin uses HRESULT codes to indicate success or failure of operations:

Operation succed.

S_OK

General failure

E_FAIL

Null pointer passed as argument.

E_POINTER

Operation not performed or condition not met.

S_FALSE

7. Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please follow these steps to contribute:

Fork the repository.
Create a new branch for your feature or bugfix.
Write tests for your changes.
Submit a pull request.

8. License

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

9. Acknowledgements

Thanks to the 7-Zip community for their support and resources.

Special thanks to developers who contributed to the codebase.