In this article we will discuss how to create a zip archive from selected files or files from a directory based on filters.
Python’s zipfile module provides a ZipFile class for zip file related stuff. Let’s use this to create a zip archive file.
First import the class from module i.e.
from zipfile import ZipFile
Create a zip archive from multiple files in Python
Steps are,
- Create a ZipFile object by passing the new file name and mode as ‘w’ (write mode). It will create a new zip file and open it within ZipFile object.
- Call write() function on ZipFile object to add the files in it.
- call close() on ZipFile object to Close the zip file.
# create a ZipFile object zipObj = ZipFile('sample.zip', 'w') # Add multiple files to the zip zipObj.write('sample_file.csv') zipObj.write('test_1.log') zipObj.write('test_2.log') # close the Zip File zipObj.close()
It will create a zip file ‘sample.zip’Â with given files inside it.
We can do the same thing with “with open” . It will automatically close the zip file when ZipFile object goes out of scope i.e.
# Create a ZipFile Object with ZipFile('sample2.zip', 'w') as zipObj2: # Add multiple files to the zip zipObj2.write('sample_file.csv') zipObj2.write('test_1.log') zipObj2.write('test_2.log')
Create a zip archive of a directory
To zip all the contents of a directory in a zip archive, we need to iterate over all the files in directory and it’s sub directories, then add each entry to the zip file using ZipFile.write()
Frequently Asked:
from zipfile import ZipFile import os from os.path import basename # create a ZipFile object with ZipFile('sampleDir.zip', 'w') as zipObj: # Iterate over all the files in directory for folderName, subfolders, filenames in os.walk(dirName): for filename in filenames: #create complete filepath of file in directory filePath = os.path.join(folderName, filename) # Add file to zip zipObj.write(filePath, basename(filePath))
It will zip all the contents of a directory in to a single zip file i..e ‘sampleDir.zip’. It’s contents will be,
sampleDir/sample_file.csv 2018-11-30 21:44:46 2829 sampleDir/logs/test_1.log 2018-11-30 21:44:36 3386 sampleDir/logs/test_2.log 2018-11-30 21:44:56 3552
Zip selected files from a directory based on filter or wildcards
To zip selected files from a directory we need to check the condition on each file path while iteration before adding it to zip file.
Let’s create function that Iterates over a directory and filter the contents with given callback. Files which pass the filter will only be added in zip i.e.
from zipfile import ZipFile import os from os.path import basename # Zip the files from given directory that matches the filter def zipFilesInDir(dirName, zipFileName, filter): # create a ZipFile object with ZipFile(zipFileName, 'w') as zipObj: # Iterate over all the files in directory for folderName, subfolders, filenames in os.walk(dirName): for filename in filenames: if filter(filename): # create complete filepath of file in directory filePath = os.path.join(folderName, filename) # Add file to zip zipObj.write(filePath, basename(filePath))
Let’s zip only csv files from a directory i.e. pass a lambda function as argument in it.
zipFilesInDir('sampleDir', 'sampleDir2.zip', lambda name : 'csv' in name)
It will create a zip archive ‘sampleDir2.zip’ with all csv files from given directory.
Complete example is as follows:
from zipfile import ZipFile import os from os.path import basename # Zip the files from given directory that matches the filter def zipFilesInDir(dirName, zipFileName, filter): # create a ZipFile object with ZipFile(zipFileName, 'w') as zipObj: # Iterate over all the files in directory for folderName, subfolders, filenames in os.walk(dirName): for filename in filenames: if filter(filename): # create complete filepath of file in directory filePath = os.path.join(folderName, filename) # Add file to zip zipObj.write(filePath, basename(filePath)) def main(): print('*** Create a zip file from multiple files ') #create a ZipFile object zipObj = ZipFile('sample.zip', 'w') # Add multiple files to the zip zipObj.write('sample_file.csv') zipObj.write('test_1.log') zipObj.write('test_2.log') # close the Zip File zipObj.close() print('*** Create a zip file from multiple files using with ') # Create a ZipFile Object with ZipFile('sample2.zip', 'w') as zipObj2: # Add multiple files to the zip zipObj2.write('sample_file.csv') zipObj2.write('test_1.log') zipObj2.write('test_2.log') # Name of the Directory to be zipped dirName = 'sampleDir' # create a ZipFile object with ZipFile('sampleDir.zip', 'w') as zipObj: # Iterate over all the files in directory for folderName, subfolders, filenames in os.walk(dirName): for filename in filenames: #create complete filepath of file in directory filePath = os.path.join(folderName, filename) # Add file to zip zipObj.write(filePath) print('*** Create a zip archive of only csv files form a directory ***') zipFilesInDir('sampleDir', 'sampleDir2.zip', lambda name : 'csv' in name) if __name__ == '__main__': main()
I was having trouble finding simplified examples showing the Open, Write, Close process. Thank you for creating such a concise explanation!
# Zip the files from given directory that matches the filter
from zipfile import ZipFile
import os
def zipFilesInDir(dirName, zipFileName, filter):
# create a ZipFile object
with ZipFile(zipFileName, ‘w’) as zipObj:
for folderName, subfolders, filenames in os.walk(“C:\\Users\\SainiV01\\Documents\\copy”):
for filename in filenames:
# if filter(filename):
# create complete filepath of file in directory
filePath = os.path.join(folderName, filename)
# Add file to zip
zipObj.write(filePath)
zipFilesInDir(“C:\\Users\\SainiV01\\Documents\\copy”, ‘sampleDir.zip’, lambda name: ‘csv’ in name)
this code is not working as per the expection…in this deirectory there are 2 files i want to keep those files as a sampleDir.zip zip file.
some could please help what i did wrong here
Hi Vinay,
In the function zipFilesInDir(), while adding file in zip using write() function, we need to pass the arcname also i.e.
zipObj.write(filePath, basename(filePath))
Actually we were adding file in zip with complete path name, that was causing the issue. In examples above I used only files in local directory, therefore didn’t encountered this issue earlier.
I have updated the code above. It should work fine now.
Thanks,
Varun