For applications that require data compression, the functions in this module allow compression and decompression, using the zlib library. The zlib library has its own home page at http://www.zlib.net. There are known incompatibilities between the Python module and versions of the zlib library earlier than 1.1.3; 1.1.3 has a security vulnerability, so we recommend using 1.1.4 or later.
zlib’s functions have many options and often need to be used in a particular order. This documentation doesn’t attempt to cover all of the permutations; consult the zlib manual at http://www.zlib.net/manual.html for authoritative information.
For reading and writing .gz files see the gzip module. For other archive formats, see the bz2, zipfile, and tarfile modules.
The available exception and functions in this module are:
Computes a Adler-32 checksum of data. (An Adler-32 checksum is almost as reliable as a CRC32 but can be computed much more quickly.) If value is present, it is used as the starting value of the checksum; otherwise, a fixed default value is used. This allows computing a running checksum over the concatenation of several inputs. The algorithm is not cryptographically strong, and should not be used for authentication or digital signatures. Since the algorithm is designed for use as a checksum algorithm, it is not suitable for use as a general hash algorithm.
Always returns an unsigned 32-bit integer.
Note
To generate the same numeric value across all Python versions and platforms use adler32(data) & 0xffffffff. If you are only using the checksum in packed binary format this is not necessary as the return value is the correct 32bit binary representation regardless of sign.
Computes a CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) checksum of data. If value is present, it is used as the starting value of the checksum; otherwise, a fixed default value is used. This allows computing a running checksum over the concatenation of several inputs. The algorithm is not cryptographically strong, and should not be used for authentication or digital signatures. Since the algorithm is designed for use as a checksum algorithm, it is not suitable for use as a general hash algorithm.
Always returns an unsigned 32-bit integer.
Note
To generate the same numeric value across all Python versions and platforms use crc32(data) & 0xffffffff. If you are only using the checksum in packed binary format this is not necessary as the return value is the correct 32bit binary representation regardless of sign.
Decompresses the data in string, returning a string containing the uncompressed data. The wbits parameter controls the size of the window buffer. If bufsize is given, it is used as the initial size of the output buffer. Raises the error exception if any error occurs.
The absolute value of wbits is the base two logarithm of the size of the history buffer (the “window size”) used when compressing data. Its absolute value should be between 8 and 15 for the most recent versions of the zlib library, larger values resulting in better compression at the expense of greater memory usage. The default value is 15. When wbits is negative, the standard gzip header is suppressed; this is an undocumented feature of the zlib library, used for compatibility with unzip‘s compression file format.
bufsize is the initial size of the buffer used to hold decompressed data. If more space is required, the buffer size will be increased as needed, so you don’t have to get this value exactly right; tuning it will only save a few calls to malloc(). The default size is 16384.
Compression objects support the following methods:
Decompression objects support the following methods, and two attributes:
A string which contains any bytes past the end of the compressed data. That is, this remains "" until the last byte that contains compression data is available. If the whole string turned out to contain compressed data, this is "", the empty string.
The only way to determine where a string of compressed data ends is by actually decompressing it. This means that when compressed data is contained part of a larger file, you can only find the end of it by reading data and feeding it followed by some non-empty string into a decompression object’s decompress() method until the unused_data attribute is no longer the empty string.
Decompress string, returning a string containing the uncompressed data corresponding to at least part of the data in string. This data should be concatenated to the output produced by any preceding calls to the decompress() method. Some of the input data may be preserved in internal buffers for later processing.
If the optional parameter max_length is supplied then the return value will be no longer than max_length. This may mean that not all of the compressed input can be processed; and unconsumed data will be stored in the attribute unconsumed_tail. This string must be passed to a subsequent call to decompress() if decompression is to continue. If max_length is not supplied then the whole input is decompressed, and unconsumed_tail is an empty string.
All pending input is processed, and a string containing the remaining uncompressed output is returned. After calling flush(), the decompress() method cannot be called again; the only realistic action is to delete the object.
The optional parameter length sets the initial size of the output buffer.
See also
