How to create a zip archive of a directory in Python?

Question

How can I create a zip archive of a directory structure in Python?

Answer 1

If you want a functionality like the compress folder of any common graphical file manager you can use the following code, it uses the zipfile module. Using this code you will have the zip file with the path as its root folder.

import os
import zipfile

def zipdir(path, ziph):
    # Iterate all the directories and files
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):
        # Create a prefix variable with the folder structure inside the path folder. 
        # So if a file is at the path directory will be at the root directory of the zip file
        # so the prefix will be empty. If the file belongs to a containing folder of path folder 
        # then the prefix will be that folder.
        if root.replace(path,'') == '':
                prefix = ''
        else:
                # Keep the folder structure after the path folder, append a '/' at the end 
                # and remome the first character, if it is a '/' in order to have a path like 
                # folder1/folder2/file.txt
                prefix = root.replace(path, '') + '/'
                if (prefix[0] == '/'):
                        prefix = prefix[1:]
        for filename in files:
                actual_file_path = root + '/' + filename
                zipped_file_path = prefix + filename
                zipf.write( actual_file_path, zipped_file_path)


zipf = zipfile.ZipFile('Python.zip', 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
zipdir('/tmp/justtest/', zipf)
zipf.close()