How To Unzip A File In Python

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Working with zip files is a common task in the world of programming. Python provides a simple and efficient way to handle zip files using the zipfile module. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to unzip a file in Python using the zipfile module.

Getting Started

First, let’s make sure you have a zip file to work with. Create a sample zip file or download one from the internet. In this example, we’ll use a file named sample.zip.

Unzipping a File in Python

To unzip a file in Python, we’ll first need to import the zipfile module:

import zipfile

Now that we’ve imported the zipfile module, we can proceed to unzip our file. The following code demonstrates how to do this:

def unzip_file(zip_file_path, output_directory):
    with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file_path, 'r') as zip_ref:
        zip_ref.extractall(output_directory)

Let’s break down the code:

  1. We define a function named unzip_file that takes two arguments: zip_file_path (the path of the zip file), and output_directory (the directory where the contents of the zip file will be extracted).
  2. We use the with statement to open the zip file, and we create a ZipFile object named zip_ref.
  3. Finally, we call the extractall method on the zip_ref object, passing in the output_directory as an argument. This method extracts all contents of the zip file into the specified output directory.

To use this function, just provide the path of the zip file and the output directory as arguments:

zip_file_path = "path/to/your/sample.zip"
output_directory = "path/to/output/directory"

unzip_file(zip_file_path, output_directory)

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to unzip a file in Python using the zipfile module. The zipfile module provides various methods to work with zip files, making it easy to handle compressed files in Python. Remember to replace the zip_file_path and output_directory with the appropriate paths in your code.