Python Standard Library

The zlib Module

(Optional) The zlib module provides support for “zlib” compression. (This compression method is also known as “deflate.”)

Example 2-43 shows how the compress and decompress functions take string arguments.

Example 2-43. Using the zlib Module to Compress a String

File: zlib-example-1.py

import zlib

MESSAGE = "life of brian"

compressed_message = zlib.compress(MESSAGE)
decompressed_message = zlib.decompress(compressed_message)

print "original:", repr(MESSAGE)
print "compressed message:", repr(compressed_message)
print "decompressed message:", repr(decompressed_message)

original: 'life of brian'
compressed message: 'x\234\313\311LKU\310OSH*\312L\314\003\000!\010\004\302'
decompressed message: 'life of brian'

The compression rate varies a lot, depending on the contents of the file, as you can see in Example 2-44.

Example 2-44. Using the zlib Module to Compress a Group of Files

File: zlib-example-2.py

import zlib
import glob

for file in glob.glob("samples/*"):

    indata = open(file, "rb").read()
    outdata = zlib.compress(indata, zlib.Z_BEST_COMPRESSION)

    print file, len(indata), "=>", len(outdata),
    print "%d%%" % (len(outdata) * 100 / len(indata))

samples\sample.au 1676 => 1109 66%
samples\sample.gz 42 => 51 121%
samples\sample.htm 186 => 135 72%
samples\sample.ini 246 => 190 77%
samples\sample.jpg 4762 => 4632 97%
samples\sample.msg 450 => 275 61%
samples\sample.sgm 430 => 321 74%
samples\sample.tar 10240 => 125 1%
samples\sample.tgz 155 => 159 102%
samples\sample.txt 302 => ...