# `gzip` — Support for gzip files

Source code: Lib/gzip.py

This module provides a simple interface to compress and decompress files just like the GNU programs gzip and gunzip would.

This is an optional module. If it is missing from your copy of CPython, look for documentation from your distributor (that is, whoever provided Python to you). If you are the distributor, see Requirements for optional modules.

The data compression is provided by the `zlib` module.

The `gzip` module provides the `GzipFile` class, as well as the `open()`, `compress()` and `decompress()` convenience functions. The `GzipFile` class reads and writes gzip-format files, automatically compressing or decompressing the data so that it looks like an ordinary file object.

Note that additional file formats which can be decompressed by the gzip and gunzip programs, such as those produced by compress and pack, are not supported by this module.

The module defines the following items:

gzip.open(filename, mode='rb', compresslevel=6, encoding=None, errors=None, newline=None)

  Open a gzip-compressed file in binary or text mode, returning a file object.

  The filename argument can be an actual filename (a `str` or `bytes` object), or an existing file object to read from or write to.

  The mode argument can be any of `'r'`, `'rb'`, `'a'`, `'ab'`, `'w'`, `'wb'`, `'x'` or `'xb'` for binary mode, or `'rt'`, `'at'`, `'wt'`, or `'xt'` for text mode. The default is `'rb'`.

  The compresslevel argument is an integer from 0 to 9, as for the `GzipFile` constructor.

  For binary mode, this function is equivalent to the `GzipFile` constructor: `GzipFile(filename, mode, compresslevel)`. In this case, the encoding, errors and newline arguments must not be provided.

  For text mode, a `GzipFile` object is created, and wrapped in an `io.TextIOWrapper` instance with the specified encoding, error handling behavior, and line ending(s).

  Changed in version 3.3: Added support for filename being a file object, support for text mode, and the encoding, errors and newline arguments.

  Changed in version 3.4: Added support for the `'x'`, `'xb'` and `'xt'` modes.

  Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a path-like object.

  Changed in version 3.15: The default compression level was reduced to 6 (down from 9). It is the default level used by most compression tools and a better tradeoff between speed and performance.

exception gzip.BadGzipFile

  An exception raised for invalid gzip files. It inherits from `OSError`. `EOFError` and `zlib.error` can also be raised for invalid gzip files.

  Added in version 3.8.

class gzip.GzipFile(filename=None, mode=None, compresslevel=6, fileobj=None, mtime=None)

  Constructor for the `GzipFile` class, which simulates most of the methods of a file object, with the exception of the `truncate()` method. At least one of fileobj and filename must be given a non-trivial value.

  The new class instance is based on fileobj, which can be a regular file, an `io.BytesIO` object, or any other object which simulates a file. It defaults to `None`, in which case filename is opened to provide a file object.

  When fileobj is not `None`, the filename argument is only used to be included in the gzip file header, which may include the original filename of the uncompressed file. It defaults to the filename of fileobj, if discernible; otherwise, it defaults to the empty string, and in this case the original filename is not included in the header.

  The mode argument can be any of `'r'`, `'rb'`, `'a'`, `'ab'`, `'w'`, `'wb'`, `'x'`, or `'xb'`, depending on whether the file will be read or written. The default is the mode of fileobj if discernible; otherwise, the default is `'rb'`. In future Python releases the mode of fileobj will not be used. It is better to always specify mode for writing.

  Note that the file is always opened in binary mode. To open a compressed file in text mode, use `open()` (or wrap your `GzipFile` with an `io.TextIOWrapper`).

  The compresslevel argument is an integer from `0` to `9` controlling the level of compression; `1` is fastest and produces the least compression, and `9` is slowest and produces the most compression. `0` is no compression. The default is `9`.

  The optional mtime argument is the timestamp requested by gzip. The time is in Unix format, i.e., seconds since 00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 1970. If mtime is omitted or `None`, the current time is used. Use mtime = 0 to generate a compressed stream that does not depend on creation time.

  See below for the `mtime` attribute that is set when decompressing.

  Calling a `GzipFile` object’s `close()` method does not close fileobj, since you might wish to append more material after the compressed data. This also allows you to pass an `io.BytesIO` object opened for writing as fileobj, and retrieve the resulting memory buffer using the `io.BytesIO` object’s `getvalue()` method.

  `GzipFile` supports the `io.BufferedIOBase` interface, including iteration and the `with` statement. Only the `truncate()` method isn’t implemented.

  `GzipFile` also provides the following method and attribute:

  peek(n)

    Read n uncompressed bytes without advancing the file position. The number of bytes returned may be more or less than requested.

    Note

    While calling `peek()` does not change the file position of the `GzipFile`, it may change the position of the underlying file object (e.g. if the `GzipFile` was constructed with the fileobj parameter).

    Added in version 3.2.

  mode

    `'rb'` for reading and `'wb'` for writing.

    Changed in version 3.13: In previous versions it was an integer `1` or `2`.

  mtime

    When decompressing, this attribute is set to the last timestamp in the most recently read header. It is an integer, holding the number of seconds since the Unix epoch (00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 1970). The initial value before reading any headers is `None`.

  name

    The path to the gzip file on disk, as a `str` or `bytes`. Equivalent to the output of `os.fspath()` on the original input path, with no other normalization, resolution or expansion.

  Changed in version 3.1: Support for the `with` statement was added, along with the mtime constructor argument and `mtime` attribute.

  Changed in version 3.2: Support for zero-padded and unseekable files was added.

  Changed in version 3.3: The `io.BufferedIOBase.read1()` method is now implemented.

  Changed in version 3.4: Added support for the `'x'` and `'xb'` modes.

  Changed in version 3.5: Added support for writing arbitrary bytes-like objects. The `read()` method now accepts an argument of `None`.

  Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a path-like object.

  Deprecated since version 3.9: Opening `GzipFile` for writing without specifying the mode argument is deprecated.

  Changed in version 3.12: Remove the `filename` attribute, use the `name` attribute instead.

  Changed in version 3.15: The default compression level was reduced to 6 (down from 9). It is the default level used by most compression tools and a better tradeoff between speed and performance.

gzip.compress(data, compresslevel=6, *, mtime=0)

  Compress the data, returning a `bytes` object containing the compressed data. compresslevel and mtime have the same meaning as in the `GzipFile` constructor above, but mtime defaults to 0 for reproducible output.

  Added in version 3.2.

  Changed in version 3.8: Added the mtime parameter for reproducible output.

  Changed in version 3.11: Speed is improved by compressing all data at once instead of in a streamed fashion. Calls with mtime set to `0` are delegated to `zlib.compress()` for better speed. In this situation the output may contain a gzip header “OS” byte value other than 255 “unknown” as supplied by the underlying zlib implementation.

  Changed in version 3.13: The gzip header OS byte is guaranteed to be set to 255 when this function is used as was the case in 3.10 and earlier.

  Changed in version 3.14: The mtime parameter now defaults to 0 for reproducible output. For the previous behaviour of using the current time, pass `None` to mtime.

  Changed in version 3.15: The default compression level was reduced to 6 (down from 9). It is the default level used by most compression tools and a better tradeoff between speed and performance.

gzip.decompress(data)

  Decompress the data, returning a `bytes` object containing the uncompressed data. This function is capable of decompressing multi-member gzip data (multiple gzip blocks concatenated together). When the data is certain to contain only one member the `zlib.decompress()` function with wbits set to 31 is faster.

  Added in version 3.2.

  Changed in version 3.11: Speed is improved by decompressing members at once in memory instead of in a streamed fashion.

## Examples of usage

Example of how to read a compressed file:

    import gzip
    with gzip.open('/home/joe/file.txt.gz', 'rb') as f:
        file_content = f.read()

Example of how to create a compressed GZIP file:

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

Example of how to GZIP compress an existing file:

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

Example of how to GZIP compress a binary string:

    import gzip
    s_in = b"Lots of content here"
    s_out = gzip.compress(s_in)

See also

Module `zlib`

  The basic data compression module needed to support the gzip file format.

In case gzip (de)compression is a bottleneck, the python-isal package speeds up (de)compression with a mostly compatible API.

## Command-line interface

The `gzip` module provides a simple command line interface to compress or decompress files.

Once executed the `gzip` module keeps the input file(s).

Changed in version 3.8: Add a new command line interface with a usage. By default, when you will execute the CLI, the default compression level is 6.

### Command-line options

file

  If file is not specified, read from `sys.stdin`.

--fast

  Indicates the fastest compression method (less compression).

--best

  Indicates the slowest compression method (best compression).

-d, --decompress

  Decompress the given file.

-h, --help

  Show the help message.