My host doesn't have the lib compiled to be able to use the PHP zip_ functions. Does anyone know a way around this? I have a cron set up to download a zip file daily to the (shared) server. I want to then be able to open the zip file and get out the text file and upload it to MySQL. If anyone has any ideas I would be appreciative! Thanks in advance...
If the server has unzip functionality from the shell (and they allow you to make shell calls), you could do it that way. Check this out.
You might also want to take a look at these two PEAR packages: http://pear.php.net/package/File_Archive http://pear.php.net/package/Archive_Zip (source code)
would I be able to have a user upload a zip file that contains multiple jpeg/gif files and somehow save them all to the server (create thumbnails as well, but I know how to do that)?
Yes, that's what you can do with the libraries mentioned. For creating thumbnails you either shell out to ImageMagick's "convert" program (if installed) or use the GD or GD2 PHP libraries (if installed).