Unzip a file in Python: 5 scenarios you should know (2023)

when you are thereHEworld for a while you should know about itunzip or extractfrom a file. More than 70% of the files available on the Internet are in the form of a lossless compressed file (eg zip, jpeg, tar, rar). There are several applications on the market to unzip a file. One of the most popular programs to decompress or extract iswinrar. But in today's article we will learn how to do it.unzip a file in python

In this particular tutorial, we will learn how to deal with 5 different scenarios when we want to extract or unzip a file in Python. For anyone who doesn't know what extraction is, let me explain briefly. Unzip is a term used to describe the process of decompressing and moving one or more files in an archive to another location.

Let's look at some conditions under which we can extract a file using Python.

5 situations in which you can extract a file with Python

• Extract only one file
• Extract all/multiple files from a zip file to the current directory
• Extract all files to another directory
• Unzip only some specific files based on different conditions
• Extract the password protected zip file withremove all()

Time to code!

Module to unzip files in Python

To extract a file using Python, we use thezip archiveModulein Python. The zipfile module is used to access functions that would help uscreate, read, write, extract and list a ZIP filea Python.

Syntax

ZipFile.extractall(path=None, members=None, pwd=None)

Parameter

• Far:This path parameter stores a path to the directory where the ZIP files should be unpacked. If not specified, the file is extracted to the current working directory.
• Members:This parameter is used to add the list of files to extract. If no arguments are given, all files are extracted.
• Password:This parameter is used to extract a file encrypted with a password.

1. Extract just one file

Sometimes we just need a specific ZIP file to accomplish our task. In such cases, extracting all ZIP files takes time and also consumes your computer's memory. To avoid this, there is an option to extract the specific file/folder from the ZIP file and save it to your computer. The following code demonstrates this:

Code -

Currently, our ZIP archive contains three files: "a.txt", "p.txt", and "pool.txt".

import zipfilezip_file = "a.zip"file_to_extract = "a.txt"try: com zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file) como z: com open(file_to_extract, 'wb') como f: f.write(z.read(file_to_extract)) print("Extraído", file_to_extract)exceto: print("Arquivo invalido")

Salida -

extrae a.txt

Explanation -

First we import the zipfile module in the first line. After that, we need to declare some constant variables that can be used later in the code. In this particular example, we are extracting "a.txt" from the "a.zip" zip file. With the ZipFile.read() function, you can store the binary value of the file in a variable and copy this variable to the local file to extract it.

2. Extract all/multiple files from a zip file to the current directory in Python

Extracting all files with Python is one of the best features of Python. If you have Python installed on your computer, you don't even need software like Winrar to extract zip files. Also, it can extract not only zip files, but also '.tar.gz', '.apk', '.rar' and other formats. The most interesting thing is that you don't have to declare any type of zipper. The module automatically detects if it is zip, rar or other formats.

Code -

import zipfilezip_file = "a.zip"try: with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file) as z: z.extractall() print("Extraído tudo")exceto: print("Arquivo inválido")

Salida -

all extracted

Explanation -

By default, we import the zipfile module in the first archive. We then use the context manager to use the ZipFile class. With this method, you don't have to close the ZIP file after opening it. You can use the extractall() method to extract all the files in the current directory of your Python code.

3. Extract all files to another directory in Python

It is very important to learn file management when coding. You should create a better storage space for your files to avoid problems with the same folders. You can use the extractall method with the parameter to extract the zip file to any folder. If the directory does not exist, the module automatically creates a new, empty directory.

Code -

import zipfilezip_file = "a.zip"try: with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file) as z: z.extractall("temp") print("Extraído tudo")exceto: print("Arquivo inválido")

Salida -

all extracted

Explanation -

We import the zipfile module and open the zip file using the ZipFile class. Using extractall(path) you can extract the entire contents of the zip file to the specifically named path. If the directory already exists, all files will be replaced. If the directory is missing, a new empty folder will be created.

4. Extract only a few specific files based on different conditions in Python

It is very convenient to extract specific file types from the zip file. Suppose you have a ZIP file that contains images, videos, and other types of files, and you only need to extract images. Then conditional extraction will help you. You can use the namelist() method with conditions to extract them.

Code -

Currently, our ZIP archive contains three files: "a.txt", "p.txt", "pool.txt", "a.jpeg", "b.jpeg", and "a.mp4".

import zipfilezip_file = "a.zip"endswith = ".jpeg"try: with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file) as z: for file in z.namelist(): if file.endswith(termina con): z.extract(file) print ("Tudo extraído", termina com) excepto: print("Arquivo inválido")

Salida -

All extracted .jpeg files

Explanation -

We'll start by importing the Zipfile module. So we declare some constants and others the zip file as context manager. All of the file names in the ZIP archive can be determined using the namelist() method. This method returns the list of all file objects. Next, we check if the file ends up with a specific file format (in our case, we used the ".jpeg" format).

If the file ends with a specific extension, we can extract the file. All files are extracted to the same folder. If you want to extract them to a specific folder, use the path parameter in the extractall() method.

5. Extracting password-protected zip files using extractall() in Python

One of the features of zip files is that you can assign a password to them. Furthermore, you can also encrypt the file names to make it more difficult. In this section, we will only discuss the basic zip file password manager and how to use it.

Note: Each software uses a different encryption technique and you may not be able to extract them with Python. Once you know that your zip file is encrypted correctly, use the pyzipper module to create a proper zip object.

Code -

import zipfilezip_file = "a.zip"try: with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file) as z: z.setpassword(bytes("pythonpool","utf-8")) z.extractall() print("Extraído todo")außer Ausnahme wie e: print("Ungültige Datei", e)

Salida -

all extracted

Explanation -

We import the zipfile module and open the zip file with the context manager. You can use the setpassword method to initialize a password for your ZIP file. The only requirement is that it accept the bytes object as input. We use the bytes() function to convert our string to bytes. Finally, you can use the extractall() method to extract all the files from the ZIP archive.

If the zip file is compressed by software like WinRar, you should use my zip module which has advanced methods to determine the algorithms.

Must read

• Gaussian Elimination in Python: Illustration and Implementation
• Bitonic classification: algorithm and implementation in Python
• An introduction to Python for Android development

last words

Python has proven to be one of the best programming languages ​​for computers with the support of thousands of modules. With easy-to-write syntax and APIs for every module in the system, you can build beautiful applications to make your tasks easier.python unzip fileis one of the features that allows you to automate your extraction tasks.

Please share this post with your friends and let them know about this awesome module!