Reading file from concatinated ( tar ) file directly without untarring the tar file

Question

Hi i am having a one xml file and some image files, i am making my one concatenate file (ie as like tar file) from all these file (i am having my own scripts for tarring and untarring).

before i describe what exactly i want you have to look the current situation.

As of now i have to untar the all files into a directory then i am able to read the xml file which is part of the tar file.Then i read the data from xml file and then i am able to draw image mention in xml ( image names are mention in xml attribute value) on corresponding panels.

Now i want when someone click on my tar file, i should able to read the xml file and then i am able to read all the other images ( data) and i can draw on the corresponding panel with extract specifically in to a directory.

Is any method or any help really help me alot. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The tarfile module gives you access to tarballs. It won't be random access, but you can read out any files you need and put them in a temporary directory, or just store them in strings.