Extracting large files with zipfile

Question

I'm trying to extract a zip file of 1.23 GB with zipFile library. But it gives the following error:

 compression type 9 (deflate64)

Here's my code:

zip_ref = zipfile.ZipFile(filepath, 'r')
zip_ref.extractall(newPath)

It gives error while trying to extract the contents.

Is there any way to unzip large zip files with Python?

Answer 1

This happens because that compression method is not implemented in the zipfile module.

Some discussion about the issue is here: https://bugs.python.org/issue14313

The fix was to raise a NotImplementedError instead of adding support for the compression method.

Suggested solutions:

• If possible, recompress the file using a standard deflate method.
• Use the subprocess module to invoke the system unzip command, asssuming it is installed on your OS (if it supports that compression method, I'm honestly not sure. I know that 7-zip supports the method.).