Downloading a folder on Appian as a zip doesn't preserve the hierarchy of that folder

RE: Downloading a folder on Appian as a zip doesn't preserve the hierarchy of that folder

Mike Schmitt — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 17:25:32 GMT

Nice, thanks for confirming!

RE: Downloading a folder on Appian as a zip doesn't preserve the hierarchy of that folder

rajivn — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 17:19:33 GMT

Yup, you were right. When I updated the name of the report to "2020-09-30 Report 1", the zip had the folder hierarchy I desire.

RE: Downloading a folder on Appian as a zip doesn't preserve the hierarchy of that folder

Mike Schmitt — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 17:09:27 GMT

Good luck - let me know what you find.

RE: Downloading a folder on Appian as a zip doesn't preserve the hierarchy of that folder

rajivn — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 17:03:45 GMT

Hey Mike! Good to hear from you. Yes, so the difference is that there are 2 extra layers added to the folder structure in the zip folder. In Appian, it was "09/30/2020 Report 1" whereas in the zip folder, it turned to "12. September" -> 9 (month) -> 30 (day of the month). After reading your explanation, it does reaffirm my suspicion. I think that is what's happening too. I will try renaming it and let you know.

RE: Downloading a folder on Appian as a zip doesn't preserve the hierarchy of that folder

Mike Schmitt — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 15:23:31 GMT

Can you clarify what the difference is that you're finding to be unacceptable, like in plain speak? I notice the following highlighted difference but i'm pretty unclear so far what I'm supposed to infer from this.

One thing that does occur to me is that Appian folders and documents don't have any limitation against containing the "/" or "\" characters, even though these are strictly disallowed characters in file OR folder names in most operating systems. Thus it's probably doing some conversion (and maybe getting something wrong w.r.t. sub-paths) when you elect to "download as zip". In fact now that I think about it, it seems pretty clear that this is what it's doing - trying to change the "/" in dates into a sub-folder descriptor (and getting a bit clogged-up in the process).

What happens if you try renaming one of those folders to something conventionally filename-compatible (as well as ISO-compliant)? "9/30/2020 Report 1" would perhaps become "2020-09-30 Report 1". This uses the "correct" date format for computer usage and would have no such "folder name limitations" - and I'm curious if that would cause it to export with the folder structure you expect?