go-casket

Small Go helper to unpack archives by calling system tools 7-Zip (7zz/7z) or unrar.

Features

• Auto-detects available tool (prefers 7zz, then 7z, then unrar)
• Password-protected archives support (-p for 7z/7zz and unrar)
• Overwrite control
• Optional timeout
• Optional working directory
• Simple API and example CLI
• Dockerfile for quick testing

Requirements (external tools)

This library shells out to one of the system tools. Install at least one of:

• 7-Zip CLI: 7zz (preferred, official) or 7z (p7zip)
• unrar (read-only RAR extractor)

Recommended: use 7zz (official 7-Zip) when possible; it supports newer formats like RAR5.

macOS (Homebrew)

• 7-Zip (official):
  • brew install sevenzip # provides 7zz
• Optional RAR:
  • brew install unrar # non-free

Debian/Ubuntu

• Prefer official 7-Zip if available:
  • sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install 7zip-full # may provide 7zz on newer distros
• Or p7zip + unrar:
  • sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install p7zip-full unrar

Windows

• Winget: winget install 7zip.7zip
• Chocolatey: choco install 7zip and optionally choco install unrar

Install (Go module)

go get github.com/XRS0/go-casket

Go 1.22+ is required (see go.mod).

Supported tools and formats

• 7zz (official 7-Zip): wide format support including 7z, zip, rar/rar5, tar (gz/bz2/xz/zst), wim, iso, cab, dmg, vhd/vhdx, vmdk and more.
• 7z (p7zip): similar but often lacks RAR5 and some newer formats.
• unrar: extraction of RAR archives only.

Actual support depends on your installed tool. You can run 7zz i or 7z i to list supported formats.

Library usage

import (
    "github.com/XRS0/go-casket/pkg/unpack"
)

func example() error {
    opts := unpack.DefaultOptions()
    // Optional settings
    opts.Overwrite = true
    opts.Timeout = 0           // no timeout
    opts.WorkDir = ""          // default to dest dir
    // Set password if the archive is encrypted
    opts.Password = "mySecret" // or leave empty if not needed

    return unpack.Unpack("/path/to/archive.rar", "/tmp/out", opts, nil, nil)
}

Notes:

• Use unpack.UnpackContext(ctx, ...) to apply a context with deadline/cancellation.
• By default, stdout/stderr of the tool are wired to the current process. Pass writers to capture output.
• opts.Preferred can be set to control tool preference order.

Example CLI

Build and run example:

# from repo root
go run ./cmd/example /path/to/archive.zip ./out
# with password via 3rd arg
go run ./cmd/example /path/to/archive.7z ./out mySecret

Usage output:

Usage: example <archive> <destDir> [password]