uncompressing tar.Z file with python?

Question

I need to write a python script that retrieves tar.Z files from an FTP server, and uncompress them on a windows machine. tar.Z, if I understood correctly is the result of a compress command in Unix.

Python doesn't seem to know how to handle these, it's not gz, nor bz2 or zip. Does anyone know a library that would handle these ?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

If GZIP -- the application -- can handle it, you have two choices.

1. Try the Python gzip library. It may work.

2. Use subprocess Popen to run gzip for you.

It may be an InstallShield .Z file. You may want to use InstallShield to unpack it and extract the .TAR file. Again, you may be able to use subprocess Popen to process the file.

It may also be a "LZW compressed file". Look at this library, it may help.

http://www.chilkatsoft.com/compression-python.asp