# Zip Files

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/zip-files/1794>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [April 30, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/zip-files/1794 "2010-04-30T16:25:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Step7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Step7](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Step7)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/zip-files/1794/1 "2010-04-30T16:25:15Z")

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I’ve been experimenting with pickling and zip files, and have most of it working with the exception of writing the actual zip file. I got it working once somehow, but it was constantly adding to the zipped archive instead of creating a new one, and now I’m back to square one.

This is my code:

```auto
import cPickle as P
import zipfile

tDict = {'1':100,'2':200,'3':Zip this stuff'}
file=open("C:\\Temp\\Test.txt",'w')
P.dump(tDict,file)
file.close() #This part works fine

zip = open("C:\\Temp\\ZipTest.zip")
s=P.dumps(tDict) #This just creates a pickled byte object, not a file object
file = zipfile.ZipFile(zip,'w',zipfile,ZIP_DEFLATED)
file.writestr('zip',s) #This is where I'm having problems
file.close()
```

What am I supposed to use for the first writestr parameter? I’ve been referring to example code on the net, but I’m doing something wrong here.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dep05d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e495f1/32.png) [@dep05d](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/dep05d)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/zip-files/1794/2 "2010-04-30T18:43:33Z")

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Try this, I think you have to pass in a ZipInfo instance containing the name of the file inside the archive. I wonder if writestr won’t accept a string because it’s an older python version? ([http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#string-formatting](http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#string-formatting))? Also, zip is just a filename in a string.

[code]import cPickle as P  
import zipfile

tDict = {‘1’:100,‘2’:200,‘3’:‘Zip this stuff’}  
file=open(“C:\Temp\Test.txt”,‘w’)  
P.dump(tDict,file)  
file.close() #This part works fine

zip = “C:\Temp\ZipTest.zip”  
zipcontent = zipfile.ZipInfo(“filename\_in\_zip.txt”)  
s=P.dumps(tDict) #This just creates a pickled byte object, not a file object  
file = zipfile.ZipFile(zip,‘w’,zipfile.ZIP\_DEFLATED)  
file.writestr(zipcontent,s)  
file.close()[/code]

It looks like the write to the zip doesn’t include newlines. You may need to go line by line in the source file and stick a \r\n at the end before writing it out to the zip.

Dan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Step7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Step7](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Step7)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/zip-files/1794/3 "2010-04-30T19:19:35Z")

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Thanks Dan! That works great.