gzip a file in Python

Question

I want to gzip a file in Python. I am trying to use the subprocss.check_call(), but it keeps failing with the error \'OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory\'. Is ther

Answer 1

From the docs for Python3

Gzip an existing file

import gzip
import shutil
with open('file.txt', 'rb') as f_in:
    with gzip.open('file.txt.gz', 'wb') as f_out:
        shutil.copyfileobj(f_in, f_out)

# or because I hate nested with statements

import gzip
import shutil
from contextlib import ExitStack
with ExitStack() as stack:
    f_in = stack.enter_context(open('file.txt', 'rb'))
    f_out = stack.enter_context(gzip.open('file.txt.gz', 'wb'))
    shutil.copyfileobj(f_in, f_out)

Create a new gzip file:

import gzip
content = b"Lots of content here"
with gzip.open("file.txt.gz", "wb") as f:
    f.write(content)

Note the fact that content is turned into bytes

Another method for if you aren't creating content as a string/byte literal like the above example would be

import gzip
# get content as a string from somewhere else in the code
with gzip.open("file.txt.gz", "wb") as f:
    f.write(content.encode("utf-8"))

See this SO question for a discussion of other encoding methods.