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 importers are only invoked for
.py and .pyc files. 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 3.15: Zstandard (zstd) compressed zip file entries are supported.
Changed in version 3.13: ZIP64 is supported
Changed in version 3.8: Previously, ZIP archives with an archive comment were not supported.
See also
Documentation on the ZIP file format by Phil Katz, the creator of the format and algorithms used.
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.
importlib - The implementation of the import machineryPackage providing the relevant protocols for all importers to implement.
This module defines an exception:
Exception raised by zipimporter objects. It’s a subclass of ImportError,
so it can be caught as ImportError, too.
zipimporter is the class for importing ZIP files.
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 the lib directory
inside the ZIP file foo/bar.zip (provided that it exists).
ZipImportError is raised if archivepath doesn’t point to a valid ZIP
archive.
Changed in version 3.12: Methods find_loader() and find_module(), deprecated in 3.10 are
now removed. Use find_spec() instead.
Implementation of importlib.abc.Loader.create_module() that returns
None to explicitly request the default semantics.
Added in version 3.10.
Implementation of importlib.abc.Loader.exec_module().
Added in version 3.10.
An implementation of importlib.abc.PathEntryFinder.find_spec().
Added in version 3.10.
Return the code object for the specified module. Raise
ZipImportError if the module couldn’t be imported.
Return the data associated with pathname. Raise OSError if the
file wasn’t found.
Return the value __file__ would be set to if the specified module
was imported. Raise ZipImportError if the module couldn’t be
imported.
Added in version 3.1.
Return the source code for the specified module. Raise
ZipImportError if the module couldn’t be found, return
None if the archive does contain the module, but has no source
for it.
Return True if the module specified by fullname is a package. Raise
ZipImportError if the module couldn’t be found.
Clear out the internal cache of information about files found within the ZIP archive.
Added in version 3.10.
The file name of the importer’s associated ZIP file, without a possible subpath.
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 and prefix attributes, when combined with a
slash, equal the original archivepath argument given to the
zipimporter constructor.
Here is an example that imports a module from a ZIP archive - note that the
zipimport module is not explicitly used.
$ unzip -l example_archive.zip
Archive: example_archive.zip
Length Date Time Name
-------- ---- ---- ----
8467 01-01-00 12:30 example.py
-------- -------
8467 1 file
>>> import sys
>>> # Add the archive to the front of the module search path
>>> sys.path.insert(0, 'example_archive.zip')
>>> import example
>>> example.__file__
'example_archive.zip/example.py'