Extract ZIP archives

Hello Nurse! (and php gurus).. I'm building an online file exchange that will allow users to share custom 3D files for a game that I'm involved in. I'd like to offer my users the oportunity to upload multiple files at once by allowing them to ZIP them all together and upload just the one file. Then I'd expand the ZIP archive, extract the files, and store them individually on the server based on certain properties (which I already look for to validate the files being uploaded individually). I did my homework, found plenty of references and example code, a few classes. Still a bit stumped though. The PHP docs refer to ZZIPLIB as the solution. Unfortunately webhost does not have ZZIPLIB installed. And of course I don't have access to the PHP config files... just my standard web account. Is ZZIPLIB something that I can use by including it into my script? Or does it need to be compiled into PHP? If so then is there another way that I can expand, extract and create ZIP files on the server? I found one ZIP class on ZEND.com. http://www.zend.com/codex.php?id=696&single=1 It looks like it should work but since it won't expand ZIP archives it's only half useful to me. Finally a friend of mine briefly eluded to the 'zip' and 'unzip' operations of UNIX. Problem is I don't know anything about Unix commands and searching for guides/tutorials revealed plenty of generic, but little useful information. Is this a possibility? If so what would the unix command be to expand and create ZIP archives? How would I tie that into my PHP script using the system() function? Well.. hopefully you get the gist of what I'm trying to do. Other than my basic knowlege in PHP I'm starting from scratch here, so just about anything you can tell me will be useful. Much Thanks, Kevin Stone nolimits@stoneentertainment.com or kevin@helpelf.com