Adding folders to a zip file using python

Question

I want to create a zip file. Add a folder to the zip file and then add a bunch of files to that folder.

So I want to end up with a zip file with a single folder with files in.

I dont know if its bad practice to have folders in zip files or something but google gives me nothing on the subject.

I started out with this:

def addFolderToZip(myZipFile,folder):
    folder = folder.encode('ascii') #convert path to ascii for ZipFile Method
    for file in glob.glob(folder+"/*"):
            if os.path.isfile(file):
                print file
                myZipFile.write(file, os.path.basename(file), zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
            elif os.path.isdir(file):
                addFolderToZip(myZipFile,file)

def createZipFile(filename,files,folders):
    curTime=strftime("__%Y_%m_%d", time.localtime())
    filename=filename+curTime;
    print filename
    zipFilename=utils.getFileName("files", filename+".zip")
    myZipFile = zipfile.ZipFile( zipFilename, "w" ) # Open the zip file for writing 
    for file in files:
        file = file.encode('ascii') #convert path to ascii for ZipFile Method
        if os.path.isfile(file):
            (filepath, filename) = os.path.split(file)
            myZipFile.write( file, filename, zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED )

    for folder in  folders:   
        addFolderToZip(myZipFile,folder)  
    myZipFile.close()
    return (1,zipFilename)


(success,filename)=createZipFile(planName,files,folders);

Taken from: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2006-August/396166.html

Which gets rid of all folders and puts all files in the target folder (and its subfolders) into a single zip file. I couldnt get it to add an entire folder.

If I feed the path to a folder in myZipFile.write, I get

IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '..\packed\bin'

Any help is much welcome.

Related question: How do I zip the contents of a folder using python (version 2.5)?

Answer 1

after adding some imports your code runs fine for me, how do you call the script, maybe you could tell us the folder structure of the '..\packed\bin' directory.

I called your code with the following arguments:

planName='test.zip'
files=['z.py',]
folders=['c:\\temp']
(success,filename)=createZipFile(planName,files,folders)

`

Answer 2

A zip file has no directory structure, it just has a bunch of pathnames and their contents. These pathnames should be relative to an imaginary root folder (the ZIP file itself). "../" prefixes have no defined meaning in a zip file.

Consider you have a file, a and you want to store it in a "folder" inside a zip file. All you have to do is prefix the filename with a folder name when storing the file in the zipfile:

zipi= zipfile.ZipInfo()
zipi.filename= "folder/a" # this is what you want
zipi.date_time= time.localtime(os.path.getmtime("a"))[:6]
zipi.compress_type= zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED
filedata= open("a", "rb").read()

zipfile1.writestr(zipi, filedata) # zipfile1 is a zipfile.ZipFile instance

I don't know of any ZIP implementations allowing the inclusion of an empty folder in a ZIP file. I can think of a workaround (storing a dummy filename in the zip "folder" which should be ignored on extraction), but not portable across implementations.

Answer 3

Ok, after i understood what you want, it is as simple as using the second argument of zipfile.write, where you can use whatever you want:

import zipfile
myZipFile = zipfile.ZipFile("zip.zip", "w" )
myZipFile.write("test.py", "dir\\test.py", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED )

creates a zipfile where test.py would be extracted to a directory called dir

EDIT: I once had to create an empty directory in a zip file: it is possible. after the code above just delete the file test.py from the zipfile, the file is gone, but the empty directory stays.

Answer 4

Heres the edited code I ran. Its based on the code above, taken from the mailing list. I added the imports and made a main routine. I also cut out the fiddling with the output filename to make the code shorter.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os, zipfile, glob, sys

def addFolderToZip(myZipFile,folder):
    folder = folder.encode('ascii') #convert path to ascii for ZipFile Method
    for file in glob.glob(folder+"/*"):
            if os.path.isfile(file):
                print file
                myZipFile.write(file, os.path.basename(file), zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
            elif os.path.isdir(file):
                addFolderToZip(myZipFile,file)

def createZipFile(filename,files,folders):
    myZipFile = zipfile.ZipFile( filename, "w" ) # Open the zip file for writing 
    for file in files:
        file = file.encode('ascii') #convert path to ascii for ZipFile Method
        if os.path.isfile(file):
            (filepath, filename) = os.path.split(file)
            myZipFile.write( file, filename, zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED )

    for folder in  folders:   
        addFolderToZip(myZipFile,folder)  
    myZipFile.close()
    return (1,filename)

if __name__=="__main__":
    #put everything in sys.argv[1] in out.zip, skip files
    print createZipFile("out.zip", [], sys.argv[1])

At work, on my Windows box, this code ran fine but didnt create any "folders" in the zipfile. At least I recall it did. Now at home, on my Linux box, the zip file created seems to be bad:

$ unzip -l out.zip 
Archive:  out.zip
  End-of-central-directory signature not found.  Either this file is not
  a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive.  In the
  latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
  the last disk(s) of this archive.
unzip:  cannot find zipfile directory in one of out.zip or
        out.zip.zip, and cannot find out.zip.ZIP, period.

I dont know if I accidently broke the code, I think its the same. Crossplatform issues? Either way, its not related to my original question; getting folders in the zip file. Just wanted to post the code I actually ran, not the code I based my code on.

Answer 5

import zipfile
import os


class ZipUtilities:

    def toZip(self, file, filename):
     zip_file = zipfile.ZipFile(filename, 'w')
     if os.path.isfile(file):
              zip_file.write(file)
         else:
              self.addFolderToZip(zip_file, file)
     zip_file.close()

    def addFolderToZip(self, zip_file, folder): 
     for file in os.listdir(folder):
      full_path = os.path.join(folder, file)
      if os.path.isfile(full_path):
       print 'File added: ' + str(full_path)
       zip_file.write(full_path)
      elif os.path.isdir(full_path):
       print 'Entering folder: ' + str(full_path)
       self.addFolderToZip(zip_file, full_path)

def main():
    utilities = ZipUtilities()
    filename = 'TEMP.zip'
    directory = 'TEMP'
    utilities.toZip(directory, filename)

main()

I'm running:

python tozip.py

This is the log:

havok@fireshield:~$ python tozip.py

File added: TEMP/NARF (7ª copia)

Entering folder: TEMP/TEMP2

File added: TEMP/TEMP2/NERF (otra copia)

File added: TEMP/TEMP2/NERF (copia)

File added: TEMP/TEMP2/NARF

File added: TEMP/TEMP2/NARF (copia)

File added: TEMP/TEMP2/NARF (otra copia)

Entering folder: TEMP/TEMP2/TEMP3

File added: TEMP/TEMP2/TEMP3/DOCUMENTO DEL FINAL

File added: TEMP/TEMP2/TEMP3/DOCUMENTO DEL FINAL (copia)

File added: TEMP/TEMP2/NERF

File added: TEMP/NARF (copia) (otra copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF (copia) (copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF (6ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (copia) (otra copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (4ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (otra copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (3ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (6ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (5ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF (8ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF (3ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF (5ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (copia) (3ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF

File added: TEMP/NERF (copia) (copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (8ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF (7ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF (copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF (otra copia)

File added: TEMP/NARF (4ª copia)

File added: TEMP/NERF

File added: TEMP/NARF (copia) (3ª copia)

As you can see, it work, the archive is ok too. This is a recursive function that can zip an entire folder. The only problem is that it doesn't create a empty folder.

Cheers.

Answer 6

When you wanna create an empty folder, you can do it like this:

    storage = api.Storage.open("empty_folder.zip","w")
    res = storage.open_resource("hannu//","w")
    storage.close()

Folder not showe in winextractor, but when you extract it it is showed.

Answer 7

here is my function i use to zip a folder:

import os
import os.path
import zipfile

def zip_dir(dirpath, zippath):
    fzip = zipfile.ZipFile(zippath, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
    basedir = os.path.dirname(dirpath) + '/' 
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(dirpath):
        if os.path.basename(root)[0] == '.':
            continue #skip hidden directories        
        dirname = root.replace(basedir, '')
        for f in files:
            if f[-1] == '~' or (f[0] == '.' and f != '.htaccess'):
                #skip backup files and all hidden files except .htaccess
                continue
            fzip.write(root + '/' + f, dirname + '/' + f)
    fzip.close()

Answer 8

Hi,

Thank you wery much for this useful function! I found it very useful as I was also searching for help. However, maybe it would be useful to change it a little bit so that

basedir = os.path.dirname(dirpath) + '/'

would be

basedir = os.path.dirname(dirpath + '/')

Because found that if I want to zip folder 'Example' which is located at 'C:\folder\path\notWanted\to\zip\Example',

I got in Windows:

dirpath = 'C:\folder\path\notWanted\to\zip\Example'
basedir = 'C:\folder\path\notWanted\to\zip\Example/'
dirname = 'C:\folder\path\notWanted\to\zip\Example\Example\Subfolder_etc'

But I suppose your code should give

dirpath = 'C:\folder\path\notWanted\to\zip\Example'
basedir = 'C:\folder\path\notWanted\to\zip\Example\'
dirname = '\Subfolder_etc'

Answer 9

None of you get it right, what is the original question about. I get it, as I just ran into the same problem, and I am looking for solution.

So: older zipper tools created archives with the following file list:

/directory/
/directory/file1.txt
/directory/subdir/
/directory/subdir/file2.exe

Now the unzipper tool has an easy task: if file ends with '/' it is a directory, and must be created.

Newer zips only create list of files like this:

/directory/file1.txt
/directory/subdir/file2.exe

Now. I need to create an older type of zip. And I can't do that in python. Has anyone solution for that?