How is it that during extraction of a zip, I get two files of the same name in the same path?

Solution 1:

Yes, the ZIP file format allows multiple files with the same name. Files in a ZIP aren't actually in directories but simply have a long name that optionally includes the path. And files are added to the ZIP by effectively concatenating them end to end. The only place where synonyms cause a problem in the ZIP format is with the directory, where presumably the later file replaces the earlier one. But when an entire ZIP file is extracted (vs. extracting individual files) the general approach is to ignore the directory and just extract the files in the order they appear in the ZIP.

The image shown is, of course, of the ZIP file contents, not a Windows directory.

Solution 2:

Yes. .zip files CAN contain the same file twice. This can be accomplished using the "add to archive" function of your zip tool. By default, a later file overwrites any former file(s) when extracting as this is usually the desired behavior.

Also, files that differ only by the case of their filename/path are considered identical when extracting to a filesystem that is case insensitive (Windows or Mac OS.)

Solution 3:

Looks like you are using Windows which considered two files with names differing by case alone to be the same filename.

It may be that your archive was created on a case-sensitive file-system (such as most Linux ones) and the two files had different cases (Ex: ENTRIES, Entries, entries).

If you look at the output, the files have the same size, same date, same CRC, so these file are identical, you can safely overwrite one with the other. It may be that some copied it with a different case as a local temporary backup while working on those files. The block number is that they are stored in different locations in the zip file, which should be obvious.