A method and apparatus for computer file system traversal. An embodiment of a method includes obtaining a computer archive, the computer archive including one or more data elements. The computer archive is traversed, with traversing the computer archive including processing a data element of the computer archive. Processing a data element includes reading a name of the data element, and determining whether to process the first data element based on the name of the first element. If the first data element is to be processed, the data element is extracted and traversal of the first data element continues. If the data element is not to be processed, the data element is skipped. A serial data stream representing selected data elements of the computer archive is output.