Zip File in Python

What is a Zip File ?

The zip file in Python or anywhere else is nothing but an interoperable storage format of a file that is commonly used to compress and archive files. The extension of a zip file is .zip. The zip files are also known as ZIP archives.

We usually perform the compression of large-sized files (in general) so that the data can be stored in a lesser storage area without the loss of the actual data. A zip file is nothing but a single compressed format file that contains one or more compressed files.

The zip file in Python is a combination of data compression in which there is no loss of data and data encryption.

How to Access Zip Files in Python ?

Suppose we have a zip file named myFiles.zip and we want to access all the compressed files of the myFiles.zip file. So for accessing the files, we first need to import the zipfile module, and then using the zipfile module's function zip.extractall(), we can extract the files of the respective zip file in Python.

Let us code the discussed things for better clarity.

Output :

Advantages of Using Zip Files

As we have a good understanding of a zip file in Python. Let us now learn the advantages of using a zip file in Python.

• The zip file in Python can be exchanged easily across platforms.
• The zip file in Python helps us to combine or pack several related files into a single transferrable file.
• The zip file is compressed in such a way that during the compression and decompression, there is no data loss.
• The Python zip file takes less storage space and helps us save disk space in memory.
• The zip files help us to compress, encrypt, and aggregate files into a smaller-sized single file so that they can be easily transferred from one system to the other.
• The Python zip file guarantees the data's integrity and hence there is no accidental or malicious change in our data.
• The zip file in Python can be transferred faster than other file formats.

How to Create a Zip File in Python ?

We have earlier seen how we can access the files contained in the zip file in Python. Let us now learn how we can create a zip archive of a file or directory in Python.

We can use the other inbuilt Python module namely the os module to walk through the files contained in the directory and during the walk we can recursively add necessary files for zipping.

Let us code the discussed things for better clarity.

Output :

In the above code, we are calling a function namely zipDirectory which takes two parameters namely - the path of the working directory and the Zip File object. The function iterates over the files, subfolders, and folders and zips them into a file by using the write() method.

How to Extract a Zip File Using Python ?

Using the zipfile module's function zip.extractall(), we can extract the files of the respective zip file in Python.

Output :

We can see that our working directory will contain the extracted files of the zip file after the program is successfully executed.

In the above program, we first imported the ZipFile class from the zipfile module which is used to read and write the zip file in Python. After that, we created an object of the ZipFile by calling the constructor and passing our file name and the reading mode of the file.

So, we have passed our file name and the reading mode as parameters of the constructor also we have named the object of the ZipFile as zipping. Finally, we have used the method named extractall() to extract all the files present in the myFiles.zip.

How to Write to a Zip File Using Python ?

Write to a zip means adding an extra file/folder to an existing zip. The idea of writing to a zip file is very simple, we will first extract all the files in a directory and subdirectory that needs to be zipped. After getting all the files of a particular folder into a list or tuple, we will call a function that will zip all the files present in the list.

Let us code the discussed things for better clarity.

Output :

Learn More About Zip Files in Python

So far we have discussed a lot about the zip file in Python. We have discussed that the zip file is a single compressed format file that contains one or more compressed files. We usually perform the compression of large-sized files so that the data can be stored in a lesser storage area without the loss of the actual data.

To learn more about the zip in python, refer to the article here.