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Compress

The Compress package provides comprehensive file compression and archiving capabilities for your RPA workflows. It supports multiple compression formats and archive types, allowing you to efficiently manage, compress, and extract files.

Key Features​

  • Multiple Archive Formats: Support for Zip, Tar, and TarGz archives
  • Advanced Compression: Support for various compression algorithms including Gzip, Bzip2, Zstandard, XZ, LZ4, and Brotli
  • Flexible Operations: Compress individual files or entire directories
  • Archive Management: Create, extract, inspect, and manage archive contents
  • Password Protection: Support for password-protected RAR archives
  • Selective Extraction: Extract specific files from archives without extracting everything

Available Nodes​

The Compress package includes the following nodes for managing file compression and archives:

Common Use Cases​

  • File Backup: Archive multiple files and directories for backup purposes
  • Data Transfer: Compress files to reduce transfer time and bandwidth
  • File Organization: Bundle related files into single archive files
  • Storage Optimization: Reduce disk space usage by compressing large files
  • Attachment Preparation: Compress files before sending as email attachments
  • Log Management: Archive and compress old log files for long-term storage

Supported Formats​

Archive Formats​

  • Zip - Universal archive format with good compatibility
  • Tar - Unix standard archive format
  • TarGz - Tar archive with Gzip compression
  • RAR - Extract password-protected RAR archives (extract only)

Compression Formats​

  • Gzip (.gz) - Fast compression with good compression ratio
  • Bzip2 (.bz2) - Better compression ratio, slower than Gzip
  • Zstandard (.zst) - Modern compression with excellent speed/ratio balance
  • XZ (.xz) - High compression ratio, slower compression
  • LZ4 (.lz4) - Extremely fast compression and decompression
  • Brotli (.br) - Modern compression optimized for web content

Tips for Effective Use​

  1. Choose the Right Format:

    • Use Zip for maximum compatibility across platforms
    • Use TarGz for Unix/Linux environments
    • Use Zstandard for the best balance of speed and compression

  2. Compression Levels:

    • Higher compression levels (7-9) provide better compression but take longer
    • Lower levels (1-3) are faster but produce larger files
    • Default level is usually the best balance

  3. Archive Multiple Files:

    • Use the Archive node to bundle multiple files efficiently
    • Provide file paths as an array for multiple file archiving

  4. Error Handling:

    • Enable "Continue On Error" option when archiving large directory trees
    • This prevents archiving from stopping if individual files are inaccessible

  5. Directory Structure:

    • Use "Implicit Top Level Folder" to add a root folder in archives
    • This is useful when extracting to avoid cluttering the target directory