Sure if you can find a COM component that's great, but you should rethink shying away from Command line shelling. In many cases it's the simplest and quickest solution to a problem. Especially if you use CreateProcess() to hide windows and potentially capture output.

Using the 7Zip command line in particular is pretty powerful and provides likely more features that most components and you avoid COM registration and licensing issues.

Anyway - just one option.

+++ Rick ---



>Hi Rick,
>
>>Then again - why not just shell out to the 7zip exe?
>>It has pretty good command line control especially when you use CreateProcess to wait and capture the command line output and control the shell window.
>
>Thanks for your contribution.
>
>The program just spits out and handle xml-based resources. I'd be glad to offer a clean alternative way to store the data as compressed stuff. This is certainly NOT mandatory.
>
>I dislike the idea of shell manipulation within a VFP standalone end-user-controlled app when it comes to data manipulation (no issue when it comes to data admin or, of course, anything in a server process). Possibly because the few COM-based components that I use extensively within the app just work so well as well:)
>
>Daniel