zipimport — Import modules from Zip archives
Source code: Lib/zipimport.py
This module adds the ability to import Python modules (*.py
, *.pyc
) and packages from ZIP-format archives. It is usually not needed to use the zipimport
module explicitly; it is automatically used by the built-in import
mechanism for sys.path
items that are paths to ZIP archives.
Typically, sys.path
is a list of directory names as strings. This module also allows an item of sys.path
to be a string naming a ZIP file archive. The ZIP archive can contain a subdirectory structure to support package imports, and a path within the archive can be specified to only import from a subdirectory. For example, the path example.zip/lib/
would only import from the lib/
subdirectory within the archive.
Any files may be present in the ZIP archive, but only files .py
and .pyc
are available for import. ZIP import of dynamic modules (.pyd
, .so
) is disallowed. Note that if an archive only contains .py
files, Python will not attempt to modify the archive by adding the corresponding .pyc
file, meaning that if a ZIP archive doesn’t contain .pyc
files, importing may be rather slow.
Changed in version 3.8: Previously, ZIP archives with an archive comment were not supported.
See also
- PKZIP Application Note
-
Documentation on the ZIP file format by Phil Katz, the creator of the format and algorithms used.
- PEP 273 - Import Modules from Zip Archives
-
Written by James C. Ahlstrom, who also provided an implementation. Python 2.3 follows the specification in PEP 273, but uses an implementation written by Just van Rossum that uses the import hooks described in PEP 302.
- PEP 302 - New Import Hooks
-
The PEP to add the import hooks that help this module work.
This module defines an exception:
-
exception zipimport.ZipImportError
-
Exception raised by zipimporter objects. It’s a subclass of
ImportError
, so it can be caught asImportError
, too.
zipimporter Objects
zipimporter
is the class for importing ZIP files.
-
class zipimport.zipimporter(archivepath)
-
Create a new zipimporter instance. archivepath must be a path to a ZIP file, or to a specific path within a ZIP file. For example, an archivepath of
foo/bar.zip/lib
will look for modules in thelib
directory inside the ZIP filefoo/bar.zip
(provided that it exists).ZipImportError
is raised if archivepath doesn’t point to a valid ZIP archive.-
find_module(fullname[, path])
-
Search for a module specified by fullname. fullname must be the fully qualified (dotted) module name. It returns the zipimporter instance itself if the module was found, or
None
if it wasn’t. The optional path argument is ignored—it’s there for compatibility with the importer protocol.
-
get_code(fullname)
-
Return the code object for the specified module. Raise
ZipImportError
if the module couldn’t be found.
-
get_data(pathname)
-
Return the data associated with pathname. Raise
OSError
if the file wasn’t found.
-
get_filename(fullname)
-
Return the value
__file__
would be set to if the specified module was imported. RaiseZipImportError
if the module couldn’t be found.New in version 3.1.
-
get_source(fullname)
-
Return the source code for the specified module. Raise
ZipImportError
if the module couldn’t be found, returnNone
if the archive does contain the module, but has no source for it.
-
is_package(fullname)
-
Return
True
if the module specified by fullname is a package. RaiseZipImportError
if the module couldn’t be found.
-
load_module(fullname)
-
Load the module specified by fullname. fullname must be the fully qualified (dotted) module name. It returns the imported module, or raises
ZipImportError
if it wasn’t found.
-
archive
-
The file name of the importer’s associated ZIP file, without a possible subpath.
-
prefix
-
The subpath within the ZIP file where modules are searched. This is the empty string for zipimporter objects which point to the root of the ZIP file.
The
archive
andprefix
attributes, when combined with a slash, equal the original archivepath argument given to thezipimporter
constructor. -
Examples
Here is an example that imports a module from a ZIP archive - note that the zipimport
module is not explicitly used.
$ unzip -l example.zip Archive: example.zip Length Date Time Name -------- ---- ---- ---- 8467 11-26-02 22:30 jwzthreading.py -------- ------- 8467 1 file $ ./python Python 2.3 (#1, Aug 1 2003, 19:54:32) >>> import sys >>> sys.path.insert(0, 'example.zip') # Add .zip file to front of path >>> import jwzthreading >>> jwzthreading.__file__ 'example.zip/jwzthreading.py'
License
© 2001–2021 Python Software Foundation
Licensed under the PSF License.
https://docs.python.org/3.9/library/zipimport.html