ArchiveFileInterface

Description

Provides methods for managing Unity archive files.

This class offers a low level interface for managing Unity archive files.

Archive files are mounted into a ContentNamespace. Once an archive is mounted its contents can be accessed with AsyncReadManager or ContentLoadInterface.LoadContentFileAsync.

AssetBundles use the archive format and can be loaded with this API, but in most cases it's preferable to load AssetBundles using the AssetBundle class, or via the Addressables package.

The data.unity3d file generated when BuildPipeline.BuildPlayer is called with BuildOptions.CompressWithLz4 or BuildOptions.CompressWithLz4HC is also an archive file. In that case the ArchiveFileInterface API is not normally needed, because the contents of the archive are automatically available in the Player.

Additional resources: ContentBuildInterface.ArchiveAndCompress.

// The following example describes how to create an archive with
// ContentBuildInterface.ArchiveAndCompress and mount the archive with
// ArchiveFileInterface.MountAsync. This example produces an archive that uses LZ4
// compression and contains one text file.

using Unity.Collections.LowLevel.Unsafe;
using Unity.Content;
using Unity.IO.Archive;
using Unity.IO.LowLevel.Unsafe;
using UnityEngine;
#if UNITY_EDITOR
using UnityEditor.Build.Content;
#endif

public class SampleBehaviour : MonoBehaviour
{
#if UNITY_EDITOR
  unsafe void CreateAndMountArchive()
  { 
    // Create the Archive
    ResourceFile[] rFiles = new ResourceFile[1];
    ResourceFile rf = new ResourceFile();
    rf.fileName = "Assets/file1.txt"; // Path of the existing file, to copy into the Archive
    rf.fileAlias = "file1.txt";       // Path given to the file inside the Archive
    rFiles[0] = rf;

    string archivePath = System.IO.Path.Combine(Application.streamingAssetsPath, "myArchive");
    ContentBuildInterface.ArchiveAndCompress(rFiles, archivePath, UnityEngine.BuildCompression.LZ4);

    // Mount the Archive
    var ns = ContentNamespace.GetOrCreateNamespace("MyNamespace123");
    ArchiveHandle ahandle = ArchiveFileInterface.MountAsync(ns, archivePath, "a:");
    ahandle.JobHandle.Complete();

    string textFilePath = ahandle.GetMountPath() + "file1.txt"; // ns:/MyNamespace123/a:/file1.txt
    ReadCommand cmd;
    cmd.Size = 1024;
    cmd.Buffer = UnsafeUtility.Malloc(cmd.Size, 4, Unity.Collections.Allocator.Temp);
    cmd.Offset = 0;
    
    NativeArray<ReadCommand> cmds = new NativeArray<ReadCommand>(1, Allocator.Persistent);
    cmds[0] = cmd;

    ReadHandle rHandle = AsyncReadManager.Read(textFilePath, (ReadCommand*)cmds.GetUnsafePtr(), 1);
    rHandle.JobHandle.Complete();

    // ...At this point cmd.Buffer contains contents from file1.txt (up to 1024 bytes)...

    rHandle.Dispose();
    UnsafeUtility.Free(cmd.Buffer, Unity.Collections.Allocator.Temp);
    cmds.Dipose():

    ahandle.Unmount().Complete();
  }
#endif
}

Static Methods