The format also supports information integrity checks with CRC32.Įven though there are other similar archiving formats, such as RAR and TAR files, the ZIP file format has quickly become a common standard for efficient data storage and for data exchange over computer networks. The ZIP file format supports several compression algorithms, though Deflate is the most common. So you can have compressed or uncompressed member files in your ZIP archives. It combines lossless data compression, file management, and data encryption.ĭata compression isn’t a requirement for an archive to be considered a ZIP file.

The ZIP file format is a cross-platform, interoperable file storage and transfer format. The company put together and maintains the current format specification, which is publicly available and allows the creation of products, programs, and processes that read and write files using the ZIP file format. PKWARE is the company that created and first implemented this file format. zip file extension are everywhere! ZIP files, also known as ZIP archives, are files that use the ZIP file format. You’ve probably already encountered and worked with ZIP files.

To get the files and archives that you’ll use to code the examples in this tutorial, click the link below: To get the most out of this tutorial, you should know the basics of working with files, using the with statement, handling file system paths with pathlib, and working with classes and object-oriented programming. If you commonly deal with ZIP files, then this knowledge can help to streamline your workflow to process your files confidently. Create new ZIP files to archive and compress files.Use zipfile to manipulate member files in existing ZIP files.Read metadata about the content of ZIP files using zipfile.Read, write, and extract files from ZIP files with Python’s zipfile.Knowing how to create, read, write, populate, extract, and list ZIP files using the zipfile module is a useful skill to have as a Python developer or a DevOps engineer. Most importantly, it facilitates data exchange over computer networks. It also allows you to reduce the size of your files and save disk space. You can use it to package together several related files. This file format is a widely adopted industry standard when it comes to archiving and compressing digital data. Python’s zipfile is a standard library module intended to manipulate ZIP files.

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