Gzip a tar file in python

Question

Is there an easy way to gzip a tar file in python so when I unzip, I can directly get the contents? I can create a gzipped file from a tar file but on untaring I still get the tar file rather than contents.

Thanks, Jason

Answer 1

Yes, but this is a system issue, not Python.

tar -xzf <tar_zip_file>

The -z flag works on creation, as well.

Answer 2

Thanks to the good people at link to the docs here.

getting info out of a tar.gz file

import tarfile
with tarfile.open("sample.tar.gz", 'r:gz') as tfile:
   with tfile.extractfile('somedir/somefile.txt') as target_file:
       data = target_file.read()

getting info into a tar.gz file

import tarfile
with tarfile.open('sample.tar.gz','w:gz') as tar:
    tar.add('dir_or_file')