7zip command not extracting to specified output directory
I'm using 7za.exe (command line version) but the same holds true for 7z.exe. Take a look at the help message carefully:
7-Zip (A) 9.20 Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov 2010-11-18
Usage: 7za <command> [<switches>...] <archive_name> [<file_names>...]
[<@listfiles...>]
<Commands>
a: Add files to archive
b: Benchmark
d: Delete files from archive
e: Extract files from archive (without using directory names)
l: List contents of archive
t: Test integrity of archive
u: Update files to archive
x: eXtract files with full paths
<Switches>
-ai[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: Include archives
-ax[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: eXclude archives
-bd: Disable percentage indicator
-i[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: Include filenames
-m{Parameters}: set compression Method
-o{Directory}: set Output directory
-p{Password}: set Password
-r[-|0]: Recurse subdirectories
-scs{UTF-8 | WIN | DOS}: set charset for list files
-sfx[{name}]: Create SFX archive
-si[{name}]: read data from stdin
-slt: show technical information for l (List) command
-so: write data to stdout
-ssc[-]: set sensitive case mode
-ssw: compress shared files
-t{Type}: Set type of archive
-u[-][p#][q#][r#][x#][y#][z#][!newArchiveName]: Update options
-v{Size}[b|k|m|g]: Create volumes
-w[{path}]: assign Work directory. Empty path means a temporary directory
-x[r[-|0]]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: eXclude filenames
-y: assume Yes on all queries
You see how it's clearly mentioned that the switches are -o
and -w
? As in, there's a hyphen preceding the switches but not the commands. Also, the colon is not part of the switch itself. If it was, then you should have similarly used x:
instead of just x
for extracting with paths. Consequently, your weird usage of o:<Path>
and w:<Path>
is the reason for your headaches.
Use something like this to compress a folder recursively and store relative paths:
7za a -r Archive.7z C:\InputFolder
Use the following to extract to a specific directory:
7za x -oD:\OutputFolder Archive.7z
Obviously if your folder names have spaces in them use double quotes.