Python: How to create a zip archive from multiple files or Directory
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.
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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.
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# 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’ 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.
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# 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()
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# 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) |
It will zip all the contents of a directory in to a single zip file i..e ‘sampleDir.zip’. It’s contents will be,
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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.
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# 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) |
Let’s zip only csv files from a directory i.e. pass a lambda function as argument in it.
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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:
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from zipfile import ZipFile import os # 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) 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() |
If you didn't find what you were looking, then do suggest us in the comments below. We will be more than happy to add that.
I was having trouble finding simplified examples showing the Open, Write, Close process. Thank you for creating such a concise explanation!