Unzip the Power: Effortless Handling of Compressed Files in Python

Discover the simple and efficient ways to work with compressed files in your Python projects

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

Dealing with compressed files is a common task in many software projects, and Python provides a range of tools to make this process seamless.

Whether you’re extracting data from a ZIP archive or compressing files for efficient storage, this article will guide you through the essential techniques to handle compressed files with ease.

Unpacking ZIP Files

One of the most common compressed file formats is the ZIP archive. Python’s built-in zipfile module makes it easy to work with ZIP files. Here's an example of how to extract the contents of a ZIP file:

import zipfile

# Open the ZIP file
with zipfile.ZipFile('example.zip', 'r') as zip_ref:
    # Extract all files to the current directory
    zip_ref.extractall()

In this example, we first import the zipfile module. We then open the ZIP file in read mode using a context manager (with statement) to ensure the file is properly closed after we're done. Finally, we use the extractall() method to extract all the files from the ZIP archive to the current directory.