zip and Unzip in Python

zip is used to compress the file. unzip is used to decompress the compressed file. In this article we will zip and unzip operation in python.

We use python modules gzip and shutil to compress and decompress the files. gzip module is used in compressing and decompressing files whereas shutil is used to copy the decompressed file to a new file.

Zip & Unzip By Example #

Lets compression and decompression with python example.

Compression Using Python gzip Module #

• Without using with

import gzip

content = 'whiletrue.live is awesome!'
f = gzip.open('/tmp/file.txt.gz', 'wb')
f.write(content)
f.close()

• Using with

import gzip

content = 'whiletrue.live is awesome!'
with open('/tmp/file.txt.gz', 'wb') as f:
    f.write(content)

Decompress Using Python gzip Module #

• without using with

import gzip
import shutil

gz_file = gzip.open('file.txt.gz', 'rb')
uncompressed_file = open('file.txt', 'wb')
shutil.copyfileobj(gz_file, uncompressed_file)

gz_file.close()
uncompressed_file.close()

• without using with

import gzip
import shutil
with gzip.open('file.txt.gz', 'rb') as f_in, with open('file.txt', 'wb') as f_out:
    shutil.copyfileobj(f_in, f_out)