ZIP Archive (.zip)
ZIP is not a route format at all — it is a general-purpose compressed archive container. RouteConverter can open a .zip file directly and read whatever supported route or track file it finds inside, without a manual unzip step first.
At a glance
| Extension | .zip |
| Encoding | binary |
| Invented | 1989 |
| By | Phil Katz / PKWARE, Inc. |
History
Phil Katz released PKZIP for MS-DOS in 1989 through his company PKWARE, replacing his earlier, legally contested ARC-compatible format. PKWARE has maintained the open .ZIP File Format Specification ever since, and the format was later adopted as the container for many unrelated file types, including Java JAR files, Office Open XML documents (.docx, .xlsx) and OpenDocument files.
Where it is used
A GPS device, app or website often bundles a track or route inside a .zip when offering it for download. RouteConverter reads such archives directly: it opens every entry, skips folders, and hands each file to whichever of its own formats matches that entry's own file extension.
Structure
A ZIP archive is a sequence of compressed entries, each with a local file header, the (optionally compressed) file data, and a central directory at the end of the archive listing every entry's name, size and offset. RouteConverter reads entries as an in-order stream via Java's ZipInputStream rather than seeking through the central directory.
How widespread
ZIP is one of the most widely used archive formats in general computing, not specific to route planning or GPS in any way; RouteConverter's support for it is a convenience feature layered on top of its other, format-specific readers.
RouteConverter support
| Reads | ZIP Archive |
RouteConverter reads this format but cannot write it.
RouteConverter only reads .zip archives, it cannot write one. Reading stops at the first archive entry it cannot parse — any entries after that one in the same archive are not processed.