Zip File Operations

Zip files are a popular way to compress and bundle multiple files into a single archive. They are commonly used for tasks such as file compression, data backup, and file distribution. Zipping or compressing files in Python is a useful way to save space on your hard drive and make it easier to transfer files over the internet.

How to Zip a File in Python

The zipfile module in Python provides functionalities to create, read, write, append, and extract ZIP files.

Zip a Single File

You can use the zipfile module to create a zip file containing a single file. Here is how you can do it:

import zipfile

# name of the new Zip file
zip_file_name = 'new_zip_file.zip'

# name of the source file
file_name = 'file_to_compress.txt'

# Create a ZipFile Object
zip_object = zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file_name, 'w')

# Add the source file to the zip file
zip_object.write(file_name, compress_type=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)

# Close the Zip File
zip_object.close()

In the above code, we first imported the zipfile module. Then we defined the name of the zip file and the name of the source file. We created a ZipFile object and added the source file to it using the write() method. We then closed the zip file using the close() method.

Zip Multiple Files

You can also create a zip file containing multiple files. Here is an example:

import zipfile

# name of the new Zip file
zip_file_name = 'new_zip_file.zip'

# names of the source files
file_names = ['file_to_compressed1.txt',
              'file_to_compressed2.txt',
              'file_to_compressed3.txt'
             ]

# Create a ZipFile Object
zip_object = zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file_name, 'w')

# Add multiple files to the zip file
for file_name in file_names:
    zip_object.write(file_name, compress_type=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)

# Close the Zip File
zip_object.close()

In the above example, we defined the names of multiple source files in a list. We then added each of these files to the zip file using a for loop and the write() method. Finally, we closed the zip file using the close() method.

To compress the zip file even further, you can set the compress_type argument to zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED. This applies the DEFLATE compression method to the files being zipped.

Unzip a File in Python

It is straightforward to extract zip files in Python using the zipfile module. Here are two ways to do it:

import zipfile

with zipfile.ZipFile('myzipfile.zip', 'r') as zip_ref:
    zip_ref.extractall('destination_folder')

In this example, we first import the zipfile module. We then create an instance of the ZipFile class for the zip file we want to extract. The r argument indicates that we want to read from the zip file, and myzipfile.zip is the name of the file we want to extract.

The extractall() method extracts all files from the zip file and saves them into the specified destination_folder. If destination_folder does not exist, it will be created.

import zipfile

with zipfile.ZipFile('myzipfile.zip', 'r') as zip_ref:
    for file in zip_ref.namelist():
        if file.endswith('.txt'):
            zip_ref.extract(file, 'destination_folder')

In this example, we again import the zipfile module and create an instance of the ZipFile class. We then loop through all files in the zip file using namelist(). If a file has a .txt extension, we extract it to destination_folder.

By using these two code examples, you can easily extract files from zip files in Python. Remember to adjust the file paths and naming to fit your specific needs.