# 7.16 `zipfile` -- Work with ZIP archives

New in version 1.6.

The ZIP file format is a common archive and compression standard. This module provides tools to create, read, write, append, and list a ZIP file. Any advanced use of this module will require an understanding of the format, as defined in PKZIP Application Note .

This module does not currently handle ZIP files which have appended comments, or multi-disk ZIP files.

The available attributes of this module are:

`error`
  The error raised for bad ZIP files.

`ZipFile` (...)
  The class for reading and writing ZIP files. See ``ZipFile Objects'' (section 7.16.1) for constructor details.

`PyZipFile` (...)
  Class for creating ZIP archives containing Python libraries.

`ZipInfo` ([filename[, date_time]])
  Class used the represent infomation about a member of an archive. Instances of this class are returned by the `getinfo()` and `infolist()` methods of `ZipFile` objects. Most users of the `zipfile` module will not need to create these, but only use those created by this module. filename should be the full name of the archive member, and date_time should be a tuple containing six fields which describe the time of the last modification to the file; the fields are described in section 7.16.3, ``ZipInfo Objects.''

`is_zipfile` (filename)
  Returns true if filename is a valid ZIP file based on its magic number, otherwise returns false. This module does not currently handle ZIP files which have appended comments.

`ZIP_STORED`
  The numeric constant for an uncompressed archive member.

`ZIP_DEFLATED`
  The numeric constant for the usual ZIP compression method. This requires the zlib module. No other compression methods are currently supported.

See Also:

PKZIP Application Note
  Documentation on the ZIP file format by Phil Katz, the creator of the format and algorithms used.

Info-ZIP Home Page
  Information about the Info-ZIP project's ZIP archive programs and development libraries.

Subsections

- 7.16.1 ZipFile Objects
- 7.16.2 PyZipFile Objects
- 7.16.3 ZipInfo Objects