Using python to "zip" a directory

[bdowen]

I am new to Python programming but have made considerable progress in the last week.

I need to know if it is possible and how if it is, to zip the contents of a directory using python. I have tried to call winzip using os.system, but have run into some challenges. I would like to make my program portable so I would rather use some of pythons built it functions if possible. The gzip module seemed promising but from what I have seen it is only good for files, not directories and all of its contents.

Help would be appreciated if anyone out there has encountered the same thing or knows the answer.

 

[2ffat]

There is (or was) a zip file class. See

http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel//lib/module-zipfile.html.

James P. Cottingham

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.
[tab][tab]Albert Einstein explaining his Theory of Relativity to a group of journalists.

 

[bdowen]

Thanks for the help!!! I actually found a round about way of doing it. I am just learning classes. There is a function in distutils.archive_util called make_zipfile. Turns out this is a very simple way to zip a directory and all its contents. Receives the location of the directory to be zipped and the location to put it.

Thanks again for the help