Listing all directories recursively within the zipfile without extracting in python

Question

In Python we can get the list of all files within a zipfile without extracting the zip file using the below code.

import zipfile
zip_ref = zipfile.ZipFile(zipfilepath, 'r')
    for file in zip_ref.namelist():
        print file

Similarly is there a way to fetch the list of all directories and sub directories within the zipfile without extracting the zipfile?

I don't believe `zipfile` has that capability. you could theoretically use `zlib` and try to parse the "[central directory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_(file_format)#Structure)" yourself, but unless these files are prohibitively large and you have a lot of them, I wouldn't go to all that trouble. I'll keep looking for a more reasonable soln. though — Aaron, Sep 21 '16 at 13:24
Tried [`ZipFile.infolist`](https://docs.python.org/2/library/zipfile.html#zipfile.ZipFile.infolist)? — metatoaster, Sep 21 '16 at 13:43
@metatoaster a quick test I did indicates that this even spits out files in a predictable order (depth first alphabetical) confirm? deny? thoughts? — Aaron, Sep 21 '16 at 13:53
What do you mean by without "extracting the zip file"? Those methods provide a list and in order to produce the list the manifest have to be extracted first... — metatoaster, Sep 21 '16 at 13:59

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 21 '16 at 14:01

1

import zipfile

with zipfile.ZipFile(zipfilepath, 'r') as myzip:
   print(myzip.printdir())

answered Sep 21 '16 at 14:01

ivan7707

1,146
1
13
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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 22 '16 at 06:51

Thanks everyone for your help.

import zipfile

subdirs_list = []
zip_ref = zipfile.ZipFile('C:/Download/sample.zip', 'r')
for dir in zip_ref.namelist():
    if dir.endswith('/'):
        subdirs_list.append(os.path.basename(os.path.normpath(dir)))

print subdirs_list

With the above code, I would be able to get a list of all directories and subdirectoies within my zipfile without extracting the sample.zip.

Listing all directories recursively within the zipfile without extracting in python

2 Answers2