unzip-to-7z

A 7z-based replacement for the unzip command.

Why

The original unzip (Info-ZIP) remains the default on most systems, and many tools expect it to be present. However, it has seen little development since 2009 and sometimes mangles non-ASCII characters.

This wrapper uses 7z under the hood to provide better encoding handling for both UTF-8 and non-UTF-8 filenames inside ZIP archives while maintaining a compatible command-line interface. Options are parsed and mapped based on unzip 6.0's uz_opts() logic.

Installation

Ensure you already have the dependencies:

• Bash
• 7z (from 7-Zip or p7zip)

Then just place the script unzip somewhere on your $PATH.

For most distros, you can do this by simply putting it under /usr/local/bin/:

sudo cp unzip /usr/local/bin/unzip

For NixOS you can add the following to your configuration, and remember to change ./unzip to the actual path of the unzip script relative to the configuration file:

environment.systemPackages = [
  (pkgs.writeShellScriptBin "unzip"
    (builtins.readFile ./unzip))    # provide unzip (unzip-to-7z)
  pkgs._7zip-zstd                   # provide 7z (required by unzip-to-7z)
];

Note: this script intends to replace the original unzip. If both are installed, the one earlier in $PATH takes precedence.

Usage

Same syntax as the original unzip (Info-ZIP unzip 6.0):

unzip -h                       # show help
unzip archive.zip              # extract
unzip -l archive.zip           # list files
unzip -p archive.zip file.txt  # output to stdout

License

MIT License