Thanks, but I can't do that without unzipping the file, can I?

Not sure, I don't remember details of archive formats.

Typically archiving programs support listing contents of archives , so if that is faster than unzipping, and sufficiently detailed for your analysis, go for it, Try It To See

Also, I would need for the script to transfer platforms, I'll have to use File::DirCompare or something similar instead.

You could do that. You could also install diff on the target machine :) whatever you need