How do I compress a folder with the GZip module inside of Python?

Question

The title says it all... I'm creating Python software that compresses files/folders... How would I create a section of the code that asks for the user input of the folder location and then compresses it. I currently have the code for a single file but not a folder full of files. Please explain in detail how to do this. Thanks!

Answer 1

GZip doesn't do compression of folders/directories, only single files. Use the zipfile module instead.

Answer 2

As larsmans says, gzip compression is not used for directories, only single files. The usual way of doing things with linux is to put the directory in a tarball first and then compress it.

Answer 3

I don't do UI, so you're on your own for getting the folder name from the user. Here's one way to make a gz-compressed tarfile. It does not recurse over subfolders, you'll need something like os.walk() for that.

# assume the path to the folder to compress is in 'folder_path'

import tarfile
import os

tar = tarfile.open( folder_path + ".tgz", "w:gz" )
    for name in os.listdir( folder_path ):
        tar.add(name)
tar.close()