Compress Files with Zip (Python)

# write and read a zipped file (in PKZIP format) with Python
# the syntax is mildly different from normal file read/write
# tested with Python24    vegaseat    18jan2007

import zipfile

# set up a test string ...
str1 = """There is no ham in hamburger.
Neither apple nor pine are in pineapple.
Boxing rings are square.
Writers write, but fingers don't fing.
Overlook and oversee are opposites.
Slim chance and fat chance are the same.
A house can burn up as it burns down.
An alarm goes off by going on.
Fill in a form by filling it out.
"""

# save the text as a PKZIP format .zip file
arc_name = "English101.txt"
zfilename = "English101.zip"
zout = zipfile.ZipFile(zfilename, "w")
zout.writestr(arc_name, str1)
zout.close()

print '-'*40

# test if the file is a valid pkzip file
if zipfile.is_zipfile(zfilename):
    print "%s is a valid pkzip file" % zfilename
else:
    print "%s is not a valid pkzip file" % zfilename

print '-'*40

# open a zip file and show information
zfile = zipfile.ZipFile( zfilename, "r" )
print "Simple file information retrieval:"
zfile.printdir()
zfile.close()

print '-'*40

# read the zipped file back in ...
zin = zipfile.ZipFile(zfilename, "r")
strz = zin.read(arc_name)
zin.close()

# display the file's contents ...
print "Checking the contents of %s:" % zfilename
print strz