Add Check What Is Inside A Zip File as a Unix TIL

unix/check-what-is-inside-a-zip-file.md

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+# Check What Is Inside A Zip File
+
+Before unzipping a file, it can be useful to check the contents. You can learn a
+few things from doing this. First off, are all the files nested under some extra
+top-level directory? How many files are in there? How big are certain files? Etc.
+
+The `-l` flag to `unzip` can help answer these questions.
+
+```bash
+❯ unzip -l zipped-files.zip
+Archive:  zipped-files.zip
+  Length      Date    Time    Name
+---------  ---------- -----   ----
+        0  08-22-2026 08:54   files-to-zip/
+       14  08-22-2026 08:54   files-to-zip/data.json
+       38  08-22-2026 08:53   files-to-zip/notes.md
+       14  08-22-2026 08:53   files-to-zip/hello.txt
+---------                     -------
+       66                     4 files
+```
+
+Notice that the first line is for `files-to-zip/` which tells us that everything
+is nested under the top-level directory that was probably the target of the
+`zip` command. Everything is organized into a table with labeled columns which
+allows us to answer our questions and get a good idea of what is in there.
+
+In my experience, zip files tend to have dozens to hundreds of files, so it is
+even better to pipe the above to a pager like `less`. That way you can search
+and navigate through everything that's in there.
+
+See `man unzip` for more details.