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classification
Title: Suggested Enhancements to zipfile & tarfile command line interfaces
Type: enhancement Stage: resolved
Components: Library (Lib) Versions: Python 3.7
process
Status: closed Resolution: rejected
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: Nosy List: Steve Barnes, brett.cannon, serhiy.storchaka
Priority: normal Keywords:

Created on 2017-08-11 08:25 by Steve Barnes, last changed 2022-04-11 14:58 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Pull Requests
URL Status Linked Edit
PR 3084 closed Steve Barnes, 2017-08-13 19:21
Messages (3)
msg300156 - (view) Author: Steve Barnes (Steve Barnes) * Date: 2017-08-11 08:25
I would like to add to the command line of both tarfile and zipfile interface some additional options that I believe to be useful.

1. Wildcard filename matching for archiving
2. Recursive archiving (with excludes)
3. Append to archive option
4. Compression Selection
 4.1 For zipfile: zip64, bizp2 & lzma (if available)
 4.2 For tarfile: document that gz, xz & bz2 are there and determined by ext.
msg302328 - (view) Author: Serhiy Storchaka (serhiy.storchaka) * (Python committer) Date: 2017-09-16 06:56
The command-line interface of zipfile and tarfile modules was deliberately kept simple. If you need more complex functionality, just write a script. Python is a programming language!

> 1. Wildcard filename matching for archiving

This is a work for a shell. Interpreting wildcards by a program breaks compatibility and makes impossible to handle files containing special characters. For example it breaks:

    python3 -m zipfile -c myzip.zip "The Book [vol. 5].txt".

No way.

> 2. Recursive archiving (with excludes)

Archiving already is recursive. It may be worth to add an option for adding directories not recursively.

> 3. Append to archive option

May be. I don't know what to do with compressed tar archives.

> 4.1 For zipfile: zip64, bizp2 & lzma (if available)

Would be nice. And this option could force compression for tarfile.

As new features they can be added only in 3.7.
msg339148 - (view) Author: Brett Cannon (brett.cannon) * (Python committer) Date: 2019-03-29 20:54
I'm going to agree w/ Serhiy and say thanks to Steve for the idea but for maintainability purposes we should keep the CLI of both modules simple and only for critical operations.
History
Date User Action Args
2022-04-11 14:58:50adminsetgithub: 75365
2019-03-29 20:54:42brett.cannonsetstatus: open -> closed
resolution: rejected
stage: resolved
2019-03-29 20:54:29brett.cannonsetnosy: + brett.cannon
messages: + msg339148
2017-09-16 06:56:02serhiy.storchakasetnosy: + serhiy.storchaka

messages: + msg302328
versions: - Python 2.7
2017-08-13 19:21:51Steve Barnessetpull_requests: + pull_request3126
2017-08-11 08:25:56Steve Barnescreate