The tarfile module makes it possible to read and create tar archives.
Some facts and figures:
reads and writes gzip and bzip2 compressed archives.
creates POSIX 1003.1-1990 compliant or GNU tar compatible archives.
reads GNU tar extensions longname, longlink and
sparse.
stores pathnames of unlimited length using GNU tar extensions.
handles directories, regular files, hardlinks, symbolic links, fifos,
character devices and block devices and is able to acquire and
restore file information like timestamp, access permissions and owner.
can handle tape devices.
open(
[name[, mode
[, fileobj[, bufsize]]]])
Return a TarFile object for the pathname name.
For detailed information on TarFile objects,
see TarFile Objects (section 7.19.1).
mode has to be a string of the form 'filemode[:compression]',
it defaults to 'r'. Here is a full list of mode combinations:
mode
action
'r'
Open for reading with transparent compression (recommended).
'r:'
Open for reading exclusively without compression.
'r:gz'
Open for reading with gzip compression.
'r:bz2'
Open for reading with bzip2 compression.
'a' or 'a:'
Open for appending with no compression.
'w' or 'w:'
Open for uncompressed writing.
'w:gz'
Open for gzip compressed writing.
'w:bz2'
Open for bzip2 compressed writing.
Note that 'a:gz' or 'a:bz2' is not possible.
If mode is not suitable to open a certain (compressed) file for
reading, ReadError is raised. Use mode'r' to
avoid this. If a compression method is not supported,
CompressionError is raised.
If fileobj is specified, it is used as an alternative to
a file object opened for name.
For special purposes, there is a second format for mode:
'filemode|[compression]'. open will return a TarFile
object that processes its data as a stream of blocks. No random
seeking will be done on the file. If given, fileobj may be any
object that has a read() resp. write() method.
bufsize specifies the blocksize and defaults to 20 * 512
bytes. Use this variant in combination with e.g. sys.stdin, a socket
file object or a tape device.
However, such a TarFile object is limited in that it does not allow
to be accessed randomly, see Examples (section
7.19.3).
The currently possible modes:
mode
action
'r|'
Open a stream of uncompressed tar blocks for reading.
'r|gz'
Open a gzip compressed stream for reading.
'r|bz2'
Open a bzip2 compressed stream for reading.
'w|'
Open an uncompressed stream for writing.
'w|gz'
Open an gzip compressed stream for writing.
'w|bz2'
Open an bzip2 compressed stream for writing.
classTarFile
Class for reading and writing tar archives. Do not use this
class directly, better use open() instead.
See TarFile Objects (section 7.19.1).
is_tarfile(
name)
Return True if name is a tar archive file, that the
tarfile module can read.
classTarFileCompat(
filename[, mode[,
compression]])
Class for limited access to tar archives with a zipfile-like
interface. Please consult the documentation of zipfile for more
details.
compression must be one of the following constants:
TAR_PLAIN
Constant for an uncompressed tar archive.
TAR_GZIPPED
Constant for a gzip compressed tar archive.
exceptionTarError
Base class for all tarfile exceptions.
exceptionReadError
Is raised when a tar archive is opened, that either cannot be handled by
the tarfile module or is somehow invalid.
exceptionCompressionError
Is raised when a compression method is not supported or when the data
cannot be decoded properly.
exceptionStreamError
Is raised for the limitations that are typical for stream-like
TarFile objects.
exceptionExtractError
Is raised for non-fatal errors when using extract(), but
only if TarFile.errorlevel == 2.
