Extract zip to memory, parse contents

Question

I want to read the contents of a zip file into memory rather than extracting them to disc, find a particular file in the archive, open the file and extract a line from it.

Answer 1

Don't overthink it. It Just Works:

import zipfile

# 1) I want to read the contents of a zip file ...
with zipfile.ZipFile('A-Zip-File.zip') as zipper:
  # 2) ... find a particular file in the archive, open the file ...
  with zipper.open('A-Particular-File.txt') as fp:
    # 3) ... and extract a line from it.
    first_line = fp.readline()

print first_line