Zipping files in python

Question

My program runs smoothly but I want my files from ftp to be zip in my local drive

The problem is only 1 file is being zipped after calling my main() function

Here's my code:

import os
import upload
import download
import zipfile
import ConfigParser
import ftputil

def main():
    
    #create a folder Temp on d drive for later use
    path = r'D:\Temp'
    os.mkdir(path)
    
    #parse all the  values at config.ini file
    config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
    config.readfp(open('config.ini'))
    server = config.get('main', 'Server')
    username = config.get('main', 'Username')
    password = config.get('main', 'Password')
    uploads = config.get('main', 'Upload folder')
    downloads = config.get('main', 'Download folder')

    #connect to ftp
    ftp = ftputil.FTPHost(server, username, password)

    dirlist = ftp.listdir(downloads)
    
    for list in dirlist:
        ftp.chdir(downloads)
        target = os.path.join(path, list)
        ftp.download(list, target)
        
    
    #########################################################
    #   THis section is where algo fails but the program run#
    ########################################################
    
    #zipping files
    absolute_path = r'D:\Temp'
    dirlist = os.listdir(absolute_path)
    filepath = r'D:\Temp\project2.zip'
    for list in dirlist:
        get_file = os.path.join(absolute_path, list)
        zip_name = zipfile.ZipFile(filepath, 'w')
        zip_name.write(get_file, 'Project2b\\' + list)
        
                
        

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print "cannot be"

Answer 1

When you do this :

for list in dirlist:
        get_file = os.path.join(absolute_path, list)
        zip_name = zipfile.ZipFile(filepath, 'w')
        zip_name.write(get_file, 'Project2b\\' + list)

you recreate a ZipFile for each file you want to zip, the "w" mode means you recreate it from scratch.

Try this (create the zip file before the loop) :

zip_name = zipfile.ZipFile(filepath, 'w')
for list in dirlist:
        get_file = os.path.join(absolute_path, list)
        zip_name.write(get_file, 'Project2b\\' + list)

Or this, it will open the zipfile in append mode:

for list in dirlist:
        get_file = os.path.join(absolute_path, list)
        zip_name = zipfile.ZipFile(filepath, 'a')
        zip_name.write(get_file, 'Project2b\\' + list)

Answer 2

Have a look at the shutil module. There is an example using shutil.make_archive():

http://docs.python.org/library/shutil.html