Untar file with subprocess.call is running successfully but with no effect

Question

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong with this command:

import subprocess

subprocess.call('tar -zvxf %s -C %s' % ("file.tar.gz", '/folder'), shell=True)

The code runs without any errors but the file is only unzipped on random occasions. I know I can use tarfile , but I would like to run it as a Linux command. Any ideas?

Answer 1

If you read the man page, you'll see that the -C parameter is sensitive to order -- it only affects operations that come after it on the command line. So, your file is being unzipped into whatever random directory you happen to be in.

You don't need shell for this. Do:

import os
import subprocess

os.chdir('/folder')
subprocess.call( ['tar','xvfz', 'file.tar.gz'] )