Python gzip folder structure when zipping single file

Question

I'm using Python's gzip module to gzip content for a single file, using code similar to the example in the docs:

import gzip
content = "Lots of content here"
f = gzip.open('/home/joe/file.txt.gz', 'wb')
f.write(content)
f.close()

If I open the gz file in 7-zip, I see a folder hierarchy matching the path I wrote the gz to and my content is nested several folders deep, like /home/joe in the example above, or C: -> Documents and Settings -> etc in Windows.

How can I get the one file that I'm zipping to just be in the root of the gz file?

Answer 1

It looks like you will have to use GzipFile directly:

import gzip
content = "Lots of content here"
real_f = open('/home/joe/file.txt.gz', 'wb')
f = gzip.GZipFile('file.txt.gz', fileobj=real_f)
f.write(content)
f.close()
real_f.close()

It looks like open doesn't allow you to specify the fileobj separate from the filename.

Answer 2

You must use gzip.GzipFile and supply a fileobj . If you do that, you can specify an arbitrary filename for the header of the gz file.

Answer 3

Why not just open the file without specifying a directory hierarchy (just do gzip.open("file.txt.gz"))?. Seems to me like that works. You can always copy the file to another location, if you need to.

Answer 4

If you set your current working directory to your output folder, you can then call gzip.open("file.txt.gz") and the gz file will be created without the hierarchy

import os
import gzip
content = "Lots of content here"
outputPath = '/home/joe/file.txt.gz'
origDir = os.getcwd()
os.chdir(os.path.dirname(outputPath))
f = gzip.open(os.path.basename(outputPath), 'wb')
f.write(content)
f.close()
os.chdir(origDir)