Now, before we dive in, let’s clarify what exactly an “archive file” is. In simple terms, it’s a compressed folder that contains one or more files. This can be useful for various reasons maybe you want to share some data with someone but don’t want them to have access to all your other stuff, or perhaps you need to send a large number of files over email and don’t want to exceed the attachment limit. Whatever the case may be, Python has got you covered!
So how do we create an archive file using Python? Well, there are actually several ways to go about this but for our purposes today, let’s focus on one specific method: using the built-in `zipfile` module. This is a powerful tool that allows us to compress and decompress files with ease, as well as create and extract archive files in various formats (such as .zip or .tar).
To get started, we first need to import the `zipfile` module into our script:
# Import the `zipfile` module to use its methods for compressing and decompressing files
import zipfile
# Define a function to compress a file using the `zipfile` module
def compress_file(file_name):
# Open the file in read mode
with open(file_name, 'rb') as file:
# Create a new zip file with the same name as the original file
with zipfile.ZipFile(file_name + '.zip', 'w') as zip_file:
# Add the original file to the zip file
zip_file.write(file_name)
# Print a success message
print("File compressed successfully!")
# Define a function to decompress a file using the `zipfile` module
def decompress_file(file_name):
# Open the zip file in read mode
with zipfile.ZipFile(file_name, 'r') as zip_file:
# Extract all the files in the zip file to the current directory
zip_file.extractall()
# Print a success message
print("File decompressed successfully!")
# Call the compress_file function and pass in the name of the file to be compressed
compress_file('example.txt')
# Call the decompress_file function and pass in the name of the zip file to be decompressed
decompress_file('example.txt.zip')
Once we’ve done that, we can begin creating our archive file. Let’s say we have a folder called “my_folder” with some files inside it that we want to include in our archive here’s how we would do that:
# Create an instance of the ZipFile class and specify the name/location of your output file
with zipfile.ZipFile('output.zip', 'w') as my_archive:
# Add all files in "my_folder" to the archive using recursion (if necessary)
for root, dirs, files in os.walk("my_folder"):
for file in files:
# Create a new ZipInfo object with the name and location of each file
zipinfo = zipfile.ZipInfo(os.path.join(root, file))
# Add the ZipInfo object to the archive using the write() method
my_archive.write(os.path.join(root, file), compress_type=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
# The above code creates a zip file named "output.zip" and opens it in write mode using the ZipFile class.
# It then uses the os.walk() function to recursively iterate through all the files and folders in "my_folder".
# For each file found, a ZipInfo object is created with the file's name and location.
# The ZipInfo object is then added to the archive using the write() method, which compresses the file using the ZIP_DEFLATED method.
And that’s it! This code will create an output.zip file in your current working directory and add all files from the “my_folder” folder (and any subdirectories within it) to the archive using recursion. The `compress_type=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED` parameter tells Python to use deflate compression, which is a popular algorithm for compressing data that can significantly reduce file size without sacrificing too much quality.
Of course, this is just one example of how you might create an archive file using Python there are many other ways to do it depending on your specific needs and requirements. But hopefully this gives you a good starting point! And if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us in the comments section below. Later!