Daily Python: Python Pool: Python Gzip: Explanation and Examples

Hello coders!! In this article, we will learn about python gzip along with certain in-depth examples. At first, we must understand what does the term gzip mean? Gzip is an application that is used to compress and decompress files. It has a simple interface in python GZip Application, making it more efficient and easy to use. Without wasting any more time, let’s learn about the python gzip module in detail.

Functions present in Python gzip Module:

1) open():

It can open any compressed text or binary file. It returns a file as an object.

Syntax: gzip.open(filename, mode=’rb’, compresslevel=9, encoding=None, errors=None, newline=None)

Filename – it is the name of the file that needs to be opened.
Mode – it comprises various option like for both binary and text file
- Options available in binary mode : ‘a’, ‘ab’, ‘w’, ‘wb’, ‘r’, ‘rb’, ‘x’, ‘xb’
- Options available in text mode : ‘rt’, ‘at’, ‘wt’, or ‘xt’
- By default, it opens in ‘rb’ (reading binary data) mode.
Compress level – it is an integer range from 0-9 as the Gzipfile constructor used to control the level of compression.
Encoding, error, newline – it is not required in binary mode. However, in text mode, these values need to be specified.

2)compress():

It is used to compress data. A byte object is returned by this function. By default, the compression level is set at 9.

Syntax: gzip.compress(data, compresslevel=9, *, mtime=None)

Data – the data that needs to be compressed
compresslevel has the same meaning
mtime – It reads the value of time of last modification. Its initial value is None

3)decompress():

It is used to decompress the data and it returns the bytes of the decompressed data.

Syntax: gzip.decompress(data)

data – The data that needs to be decompressed.

Command-line Interface of Python Gzip:

Sl No	Command	Function
1	file	if the file is not specified, it is read from sys.stdin
2	–fast	shows the fastest compression method (less compression)
3	–best	shows the slowest compression method (best compression)
4	-d/–decompress	decompress the given file
5	-h/–help	displays the help message

Command line interface for python gzip

Examples to understand Python gzip:

Example 1: Create a compressed gzip file:

import gzip
content = b"Hello coders!!"
with gzip.open('sample.txt.gz', 'wb') as file:
    file.write(content))

By executing this command a sample.txt file is created in the current directory.

smple.txt file created in the current directory

Example 2: Read a compressed file:

with gzip.open("sample.txt.gz", "rb") as file:
    data = file.read()
data

By executing this command, we will be able to read the contents of our compressed gzip file sample.txt

Example 3: Compress an existing file

file = open("sample1.txt","rb")
data = file.read()
bindata = bytearray(data)
with gzip.open("sample2.txt.gz", "wb") as f:
    f.write(bindata)

In this we have first opened an existing file sample1.txt
After that we copied its contents into the variable data
We then converted it into a byte array
Lastly, we compressed the data in sample2.txt

Compressed file sample2.txt created from sample1

Example 4: Compress a binary string:

inp = b"Hello coders!!"
out = gzip.compress(inp)

Advantages of Python Gzip:

gzip is extremely easy to use
Saves bandwidth
Decreases transfer time
Increases the response speed

Disadvantages of Python Gzip:

Slightly increases the load on server as compression and decompression both requires CPU cycles

Must Read

Conclusion:

In this article, we learned about the python gzip module and how it helps us in various ways. We have also seen various examples to learn how we can implement them in our program.

However, if you have any doubts or questions, do let me know in the comment section below. I will try to help you as soon as possible.

Happy Pythoning!

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Daily Python

Friday, December 18, 2020

Python Pool: Python Gzip: Explanation and Examples