Zip files are broadly used to store, group, and transfer files across computer platforms. Unfortunately for the Salesforce developer, there is no zip support available in Apex. To solve this we created an open source zip library in native Apex that brings support to zip and unzip files on the Force.com platform. In this presentation, we will describe the challenges of creating a zip library in Apex; such as governor limits and the lack of binary data operations. We will also demonstrate how to use this library to create and modify the contents of zip archives. Lastly we will show how to leverage zip support to read and update MS Word files.

Presenters: 

Pedro Dal Col is a salesforce.com developer at Groupon Inc. with 8 years of software development experience.

Pliny Smith is a Salesforce enthusiast working on open source projects on the Force.com platform.