ActiveState Code

Recipe 576714: Extract a compressed file

This recipe can be used to extract any zip or tar.gz/tar.bz2 file.

Python 
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import os
import tarfile
import zipfile

def extract_file(path, to_directory='.'):
    if path.endswith('.zip'):
        opener, mode = zipfile.ZipFile, 'r'
    elif path.endswith('.tar.gz') or path.endswith('.tgz'):
        opener, mode = tarfile.open, 'r:gz'
    elif path.endswith('.tar.bz2') or path.endswith('.tbz'):
        opener, mode = tarfile.open, 'r:bz2'
    else: 
        raise ValueError, "Could not extract `%s` as no appropriate extractor is found" % path
    
    cwd = os.getcwd()
    os.chdir(to_directory)
    
    try:
        file = opener(path, mode)
        try: file.extractall()
        finally: file.close()
    finally:
        os.chdir(cwd)

Discussion

Use it like this:

>>> extract_file("Python-2.6.1.tar.gz")
>>> extract_file("linux-2.7.1-2.tar.bz2")
>>> extract_file("diveintopython-word-5.4.zip")

Comments

  1. 1. At 12:17 a.m. on 9 apr 2009, david.gaarenstroom said:

    You forget to use mode?

  2. 2. At 8:20 a.m. on 9 apr 2009, Sridhar Ratnakumar (the author) said:

    @david - fixed now.

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