can tarfile maintain directory structure?

[Jay Donnell]

Is there a way to use the tarfile module to recursively compress the
contents of a directory and maintain the directory structure in the
tar archive?

Simply doing os.system('tar -czvf ' + fileName +'.tar.gz ' +
directory)
works great on linux, but I need this script to work on windows as
well :(

[François Pinard]

Re: can tarfile maintain directory structure?

[Jay Donnell]
[color=blue]
> Simply doing os.system('tar -czvf ' + fileName +'.tar.gz ' +
> directory) works great on linux, but I need this script to work on
> windows as well :([/color]

GNU tar, and surely others, have been ported to Windows. Check within
the DJGPP and Cygwin projects.

--
François Pinard http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard

[Adonis]

Re: can tarfile maintain directory structure?

"Jay Donnell" <jaydonnell@yah oo.com> wrote in message
news:a6fdfd6b.0 408171508.65d67 0d0@posting.goo gle.com...[color=blue]
> Is there a way to use the tarfile module to recursively compress the
> contents of a directory and maintain the directory structure in the
> tar archive?
>
> Simply doing os.system('tar -czvf ' + fileName +'.tar.gz ' +
> directory)
> works great on linux, but I need this script to work on windows as
> well :([/color]

Starting from Python 2.3 there is a tarfile module in the stdlib

http://docs.python.org/lib/module-tarfile.html

Adonis

[Jeff Epler]

Re: can tarfile maintain directory structure?

You can use os.walk (or os.path.walk for older versions of Python) to
recurse a directory tree. Here's a simple script to use tarfile and
os.walk:

import tarfile, sys, os

t = tarfile.TarFile (sys.argv[1], "w")
for f in sys.argv[2:]:
for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(f):
for f in filenames:
f = os.path.join(di rpath, f)
print "Adding", f
t.add(f)

t.close()

Here's a sample session with it:
* Creating a simple directory structure
$ mkdir a
$ touch a/file.txt
$ mkdir a/subdir
$ touch a/subdir/subfile.txt

* Invoking the script
$ python ~/mktar.py test.tar a
Adding a/file.txt
Adding a/subdir/subfile .txt

* Checking on the results
$ tar tvf test.tar
-rw-rw-r-- jepler/jepler 0 2004-08-17 21:00:57 a/file.txt
-rw-rw-r-- jepler/jepler 0 2004-08-17 21:01:03 a/subdir/subfile.txt

I suspect that to get compressed output would involve use of gzip.open
and the 3-argument TarFile constructor, something like
import gzip
g = gzip.open(sys.a rgv[1], "w")
t = tarfile.TarFile (sys.argv[1], "w", g)
...
indeed, this seems to work for me.
$ python ~/mktargz.py test.tar.gz a
Adding a/file.txt
Adding a/subdir/subfile.txt
$ file test.tar.gz
test.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, was "test.tar", max compression

Jeff

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[Lars Gustaebel]

Re: can tarfile maintain directory structure?

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 21:06:45 -0500, Jeff Epler wrote:
[color=blue]
> You can use os.walk (or os.path.walk for older versions of Python) to
> recurse a directory tree. Here's a simple script to use tarfile and
> os.walk:
> [snip][/color]

Far too complicated... tarfile.py is rather high-level:

import tarfile

tar = tarfile.open(fi lename, "w:gz")
tar.add(directo ry)
tar.close()

The add() method is recursive by default. More information and examples
here: http://docs.python.org/lib/module-tarfile.html

--
Lars Gustäbel
lars@gustaebel. de

[Jay Donnell]

Re: can tarfile maintain directory structure?

> import tarfile[color=blue]
>
> tar = tarfile.open(fi lename, "w:gz")
> tar.add(directo ry)
> tar.close()
>
> The add() method is recursive by default. More information and examples
> here: http://docs.python.org/lib/module-tarfile.html[/color]

That doesn't maintain the directory structure. When you untar it all
the files are in the base directory (when I untar it on windows with
winzip).

I haven't tried jeff's suggestion yet, but I'll let ya'll know how
that goes.

[David M. Cooke]

Re: can tarfile maintain directory structure?

At some point, jaydonnell@yaho o.com (Jay Donnell) wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> import tarfile
>>
>> tar = tarfile.open(fi lename, "w:gz")
>> tar.add(directo ry)
>> tar.close()
>>
>> The add() method is recursive by default. More information and examples
>> here: http://docs.python.org/lib/module-tarfile.html[/color]
>
> That doesn't maintain the directory structure. When you untar it all
> the files are in the base directory (when I untar it on windows with
> winzip).[/color]

Winzip is probably broken? It works for me using GNU tar on Linux.

--
|>|\/|<
/--------------------------------------------------------------------------\
|David M. Cooke
|cookedm(at)phy sics(dot)mcmast er(dot)ca

[Richard Townsend]

Re: can tarfile maintain directory structure?

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 15:13:29 -0400, David M. Cooke wrote:[color=blue]
>
> Winzip is probably broken? It works for me using GNU tar on Linux.[/color]


There was a bug report relating to tarfile & WinZip:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=5470&atid=105470&func=detail&aid=949052

Looks like it was closed today.

regards,
Richard

[Jay Donnell]

Re: can tarfile maintain directory structure?

> > import tarfile[color=blue][color=green]
> >
> > tar = tarfile.open(fi lename, "w:gz")
> > tar.add(directo ry)
> > tar.close()[/color][/color]

This works perfectly on linux, but it wasn't working for me on windows
yesterday. I'll try it again the next time I'm on windows.