12. Data Compression and Archiving

The modules described in this chapter support data compression with the zlib, gzip, and bzip2 algorithms, and the creation of ZIP- and tar-format archives. See also Archiving operations provided by the shutil module.

• 12.1. zlib — Compression compatible with gzip
• 12.2. gzip — Support for gzip files
  • 12.2.1. Examples of usage
• 12.3. bz2 — Compression compatible with bzip2
  • 12.3.1. (De)compression of files
  • 12.3.2. Sequential (de)compression
  • 12.3.3. One-shot (de)compression
• 12.4. zipfile — Work with ZIP archives
  • 12.4.1. ZipFile Objects
  • 12.4.2. PyZipFile Objects
  • 12.4.3. ZipInfo Objects
  • 12.4.4. Command-Line Interface
    • 12.4.4.1. Command-line options
  • 12.4.5. Decompression pitfalls
    • 12.4.5.1. From file itself
    • 12.4.5.2. File System limitations
    • 12.4.5.3. Resources limitations
    • 12.4.5.4. Interruption
    • 12.4.5.5. Default behaviors of extraction
• 12.5. tarfile — Read and write tar archive files
  • 12.5.1. TarFile Objects
  • 12.5.2. TarInfo Objects
  • 12.5.3. Examples
  • 12.5.4. Supported tar formats
  • 12.5.5. Unicode issues