zip file and avoid directory structure

I have a Python script that zips a file (new.txt):

tofile =  "/root/files/result/"+file
targetzipfile = new.zip # This is how I want my zip to look like
zf = zipfile.ZipFile(targetzipfile, mode='w')
try:
    #adding to archive
    zf.write(tofile)
finally:
    zf.close()

When I do this I get the zip file. But when I try to unzip the file I get the text file inside of a series of directories corresponding to the path of the file i.e I see a folder called root in the result directory and more directories within it, i.e. I have

/root/files/result/new.zip

and when I unzip new.zip I have a directory structure that looks like

/root/files/result/root/files/result/new.txt

Is there a way I can zip such that when I unzip I only get new.txt?

In other words I have /root/files/result/new.zip and when I unzip new.zip, it should look like

/root/files/results/new.txt

The zipfile.write() method takes an optional arcname argument that specifies what the name of the file should be inside the zipfile

I think you need to do a modification for the destination, otherwise it will duplicate the directory. Use :arcname to avoid it. try like this:

import os
import zipfile

def zip(src, dst):
    zf = zipfile.ZipFile("%s.zip" % (dst), "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
    abs_src = os.path.abspath(src)
    for dirname, subdirs, files in os.walk(src):
        for filename in files:
            absname = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(dirname, filename))
            arcname = absname[len(abs_src) + 1:]
            print 'zipping %s as %s' % (os.path.join(dirname, filename),
                                        arcname)
            zf.write(absname, arcname)
    zf.close()

zip("src", "dst")

zf.write(tofile)

to change

zf.write(tofile, zipfile_dir)

for example

zf.write("/root/files/result/root/files/result/new.txt", "/root/files/results/new.txt")

To illustrate most clearly,

directory structure:

/Users
 └── /user
 .    ├── /pixmaps
 .    │    ├── pixmap_00.raw
 .    │    ├── pixmap_01.raw
      │    ├── /jpeg
      │    │    ├── pixmap_00.jpg
      │    │    └── pixmap_01.jpg
      │    └── /png
      │         ├── pixmap_00.png
      │         └── pixmap_01.png
      ├── /docs
      ├── /programs
      ├── /misc
      .
      .
      .

Directory of interest: /Users/user/pixmaps

First attemp

import os
import zipfile

TARGET_DIRECTORY = "/Users/user/pixmaps"
ZIPFILE_NAME = "CompressedDir.zip"

def zip_dir(directory, zipname):
    """
    Compress a directory (ZIP file).
    """
    if os.path.exists(directory):
        outZipFile = zipfile.ZipFile(zipname, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
        
        for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(directory):
            for filename in filenames:

                filepath   = os.path.join(dirpath, filename)
                outZipFile.write(filepath)

        outZipFile.close()




if __name__ == '__main__':
    zip_dir(TARGET_DIRECTORY, ZIPFILE_NAME)

ZIP file structure:

CompressedDir.zip
.
└── /Users
     └── /user
          └── /pixmaps
               ├── pixmap_00.raw
               ├── pixmap_01.raw
               ├── /jpeg
               │    ├── pixmap_00.jpg
               │    └── pixmap_01.jpg
               └── /png
                    ├── pixmap_00.png
                    └── pixmap_01.png

Avoiding the full directory path

def zip_dir(directory, zipname):
    """
    Compress a directory (ZIP file).
    """
    if os.path.exists(directory):
        outZipFile = zipfile.ZipFile(zipname, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
        
        # The root directory within the ZIP file.
        rootdir = os.path.basename(directory)
        
        for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(directory):
            for filename in filenames:

                # Write the file named filename to the archive,
                # giving it the archive name 'arcname'.
                filepath   = os.path.join(dirpath, filename)
                parentpath = os.path.relpath(filepath, directory)
                arcname    = os.path.join(rootdir, parentpath)
                
                outZipFile.write(filepath, arcname)

    outZipFile.close()




if __name__ == '__main__':
    zip_dir(TARGET_DIRECTORY, ZIPFILE_NAME)

ZIP file structure:

CompressedDir.zip
.
└── /pixmaps
     ├── pixmap_00.raw
     ├── pixmap_01.raw
     ├── /jpeg
     │    ├── pixmap_00.jpg
     │    └── pixmap_01.jpg
     └── /png
          ├── pixmap_00.png
          └── pixmap_01.png

Check out the documentation for Zipfile.write.

> ZipFile.write(filename[, arcname[, compress_type]]) Write the file > named filename to the archive, giving it the archive name arcname (by > default, this will be the same as filename, but without a drive letter > and with leading path separators removed)

https://docs.python.org/2/library/zipfile.html#zipfile.ZipFile.write

Try the following:

import zipfile
import os
filename = 'foo.txt'

# Using os.path.join is better than using '/' it is OS agnostic
path = os.path.join(os.path.sep, 'tmp', 'bar', 'baz', filename)
zip_filename = os.path.splitext(filename)[0] + '.zip'
zip_path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(path), zip_filename)

# If you need exception handling wrap this in a try/except block
with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_path, 'w') as zf:
    zf.write(path, zip_filename)

The bottom line is that if you do not supply an archive name then the filename is used as the archive name and it will contain the full path to the file.

You can isolate just the file name of your sources files using:

name_file_only= name_full_path.split(os.sep)[-1]

For example, if name_full_path is /root/files/results/myfile.txt, then name_file_only will be myfile.txt. To zip myfile.txt to the root of the archive zf, you can then use:

zf.write(name_full_path, name_file_only)

The arcname parameter in the write method specifies what will be the name of the file inside the zipfile:

import os
import zipfile

# 1. Create a zip file which we will write files to
zip_file = "/home/username/test.zip"
zipf = zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)

# 2. Write files found in "/home/username/files/" to the test.zip
files_to_zip = "/home/username/files/"
for file_to_zip in os.listdir(files_to_zip):

    file_to_zip_full_path = os.path.join(files_to_zip, file_to_zip)

    # arcname argument specifies what will be the name of the file inside the zipfile
    zipf.write(filename=file_to_zip_full_path, arcname=file_to_zip)

zipf.close()

We can use this

import os
# single File
os.system(f"cd {destinationFolder} && zip fname.zip fname") 
# directory
os.system(f"cd {destinationFolder} && zip -r folder.zip folder") 

For me, This is working.

It is much simpler than expected, I configured the module using the parameter "arcname" as "file_to_be_zipped.txt", so the folders do not appear in my final zipped file:

mmpk_zip_file = zipfile.ZipFile("c:\\Destination_folder_name\newzippedfilename.zip", mode='w', compression=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
mmpk_zip_file.write("c:\\Source_folder_name\file_to_be_zipped.txt", "file_to_be_zipped.txt")
mmpk_zip_file.close()

Specify the arcname input of the write method as following:

tofile =  "/root/files/result/"+file
NewRoot = "files/result/"
zf.write(tofile, arcname=tofile.split(NewRoot)[1])

More info: > ZipFile.write(filename, arcname=None, compress_type=None, > compresslevel=None) https://docs.python.org/3/library/zipfile.html

I face the same problem and i solve it with writestr. You can use it like this:

zipObject.writestr(<filename> , <file data, bytes or string>)

If you want an elegant way to do it with pathlib you can use it this way:

from pathlib import Path
import zipfile

def zip_dir(path_to_zip: Path):
    zip_file = Path(path_to_zip).with_suffix('.zip')
    z = zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
    for f in list(path_to_zip.rglob('*.*')):
        z.write(f, arcname=f.relative_to(path_to_zip))

To get rid of the absolute path, I came up with this:

def create_zip(root_path, file_name, ignored=[], storage_path=None):
    """Create a ZIP
    
    This function creates a ZIP file of the provided root path.
    
    Args:
        root_path (str): Root path to start from when picking files and directories.
        file_name (str): File name to save the created ZIP file as.
        ignored (list): A list of files and/or directories that you want to ignore. This
                        selection is applied in root directory only.
        storage_path: If provided, ZIP file will be placed in this location. If None, the
                        ZIP will be created in root_path
    """
    if storage_path is not None:
        zip_root = os.path.join(storage_path, file_name)
    else:
        zip_root = os.path.join(root_path, file_name)
        
    zipf = zipfile.ZipFile(zip_root, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
    def iter_subtree(path, layer=0):
        # iter the directory
        path = Path(path)
        for p in path.iterdir():
            if layer == 0 and p.name in ignored:
                continue
            zipf.write(p, str(p).replace(root_path, '').lstrip('/'))
            
            if p.is_dir():
                iter_subtree(p, layer=layer+1)

    iter_subtree(root_path)
    zipf.close()

Maybe it isn't the most elegant solution, but this works. If we just use p.name when providing the file name to write() method, then it doesn't create the proper directory structure.

Moreover, if it's needed to ignore the selected directories or files from the root path, this ignores those selections too.