How to read data from a zip file without having to unzip the entire file

With .Net Framework 4.5 (using ZipArchive):

using (ZipArchive zip = ZipFile.Open(zipfile, ZipArchiveMode.Read))
    foreach (ZipArchiveEntry entry in zip.Entries)
        if(entry.Name == "myfile")
            entry.ExtractToFile("myfile");

Find "myfile" in zipfile and extract it.

DotNetZip is your friend here.

As easy as:

using (ZipFile zip = ZipFile.Read(ExistingZipFile))
{
  ZipEntry e = zip["MyReport.doc"];
  e.Extract(OutputStream);
}

(you can also extract to a file or other destinations).

Reading the zip file's table of contents is as easy as:

using (ZipFile zip = ZipFile.Read(ExistingZipFile))
{
  foreach (ZipEntry e in zip)
  {
    if (header)
    {
      System.Console.WriteLine("Zipfile: {0}", zip.Name);
      if ((zip.Comment != null) && (zip.Comment != "")) 
        System.Console.WriteLine("Comment: {0}", zip.Comment);
      System.Console.WriteLine("\n{1,-22} {2,8}  {3,5}   {4,8}  {5,3} {0}",
                               "Filename", "Modified", "Size", "Ratio", "Packed", "pw?");
      System.Console.WriteLine(new System.String('-', 72));
      header = false;
    }
    System.Console.WriteLine("{1,-22} {2,8} {3,5:F0}%   {4,8}  {5,3} {0}",
                             e.FileName,
                             e.LastModified.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"),
                             e.UncompressedSize,
                             e.CompressionRatio,
                             e.CompressedSize,
                             (e.UsesEncryption) ? "Y" : "N");

  }
}

Edited To Note: DotNetZip used to live at Codeplex. Codeplex has been shut down. The old archive is still available at Codeplex. It looks like the code has migrated to Github:

• https://github.com/DinoChiesa/DotNetZip. Looks to be the original author's repo.
• https://github.com/haf/DotNetZip.Semverd. This looks to be the currently maintained version. It's also packaged up an available via Nuget at https://www.nuget.org/packages/DotNetZip/

Something like this will list and extract the files one by one, if you want to use SharpZipLib:

var zip = new ZipInputStream(File.OpenRead(@"C:\Users\Javi\Desktop\myzip.zip"));
var filestream = new FileStream(@"C:\Users\Javi\Desktop\myzip.zip", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
ZipFile zipfile = new ZipFile(filestream);
ZipEntry item;
while ((item = zip.GetNextEntry()) != null)
{
     Console.WriteLine(item.Name);
     using (StreamReader s = new StreamReader(zipfile.GetInputStream(item)))
     {
      // stream with the file
          Console.WriteLine(s.ReadToEnd());
     }
 }

Based on this example: content inside zip file

Here is how a UTF8 text file can be read from a zip archive into a string variable (.NET Framework 4.5 and up):

string zipFileFullPath = "{{TypeYourZipFileFullPathHere}}";
string targetFileName = "{{TypeYourTargetFileNameHere}}";
string text = new string(
            (new System.IO.StreamReader(
             System.IO.Compression.ZipFile.OpenRead(zipFileFullPath)
             .Entries.Where(x => x.Name.Equals(targetFileName,
                                          StringComparison.InvariantCulture))
             .FirstOrDefault()
             .Open(), Encoding.UTF8)
             .ReadToEnd())
             .ToArray());