# `zipfile` — Work with ZIP archives

Source code: Lib/zipfile/

The ZIP file format is a common archive and compression standard. This module provides tools to create, read, write, append, and list a ZIP file. Any advanced use of this module will require an understanding of the format, as defined in PKZIP Application Note.

This module does not currently handle multi-disk ZIP files. It can handle ZIP files that use the ZIP64 extensions (that is ZIP files that are more than 4 GiB in size). It supports decryption of encrypted files in ZIP archives, but it currently cannot create an encrypted file. Decryption is extremely slow as it is implemented in native Python rather than C.

The module defines the following items:

exception zipfile.BadZipFile

  The error raised for bad ZIP files.

  Added in version 3.2.

exception zipfile.BadZipfile

  Alias of `BadZipFile`, for compatibility with older Python versions.

  Deprecated since version 3.2.

exception zipfile.LargeZipFile

  The error raised when a ZIP file would require ZIP64 functionality but that has not been enabled.

class zipfile.ZipFile

  The class for reading and writing ZIP files. See section ZipFile Objects for constructor details.

class zipfile.Path

  Class that implements a subset of the interface provided by `pathlib.Path`, including the full `importlib.resources.abc.Traversable` interface.

  Added in version 3.8.

class zipfile.PyZipFile

  Class for creating ZIP archives containing Python libraries.

class zipfile.ZipInfo(filename='NoName', date_time=(1980, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0))

  Class used to represent information about a member of an archive. Instances of this class are returned by the `getinfo()` and `infolist()` methods of `ZipFile` objects. Most users of the `zipfile` module will not need to create these, but only use those created by this module. filename should be the full name of the archive member, and date_time should be a tuple containing six fields which describe the time of the last modification to the file; the fields are described in section ZipInfo Objects.

  Changed in version 3.13: A public `compress_level` attribute has been added to expose the formerly protected `_compresslevel`. The older protected name continues to work as a property for backwards compatibility.

zipfile.is_zipfile(filename)

  Returns `True` if filename is a valid ZIP file based on its magic number, otherwise returns `False`. filename may be a file or file-like object too.

  Changed in version 3.1: Support for file and file-like objects.

zipfile.ZIP_STORED

  The numeric constant for an uncompressed archive member.

zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED

  The numeric constant for the usual ZIP compression method. This requires the `zlib` module.

zipfile.ZIP_BZIP2

  The numeric constant for the BZIP2 compression method. This requires the `bz2` module.

  Added in version 3.3.

zipfile.ZIP_LZMA

  The numeric constant for the LZMA compression method. This requires the `lzma` module.

  Added in version 3.3.

  Note

  The ZIP file format specification has included support for bzip2 compression since 2001, and for LZMA compression since 2006. However, some tools (including older Python releases) do not support these compression methods, and may either refuse to process the ZIP file altogether, or fail to extract individual files.

See also

PKZIP Application Note

  Documentation on the ZIP file format by Phil Katz, the creator of the format and algorithms used.

Info-ZIP Home Page

  Information about the Info-ZIP project’s ZIP archive programs and development libraries.

## ZipFile Objects

class zipfile.ZipFile(file, mode='r', compression=ZIP_STORED, allowZip64=True, compresslevel=None, *, strict_timestamps=True, metadata_encoding=None)

  Open a ZIP file, where file can be a path to a file (a string), a file-like object or a path-like object.

  The mode parameter should be `'r'` to read an existing file, `'w'` to truncate and write a new file, `'a'` to append to an existing file, or `'x'` to exclusively create and write a new file. If mode is `'x'` and file refers to an existing file, a `FileExistsError` will be raised. If mode is `'a'` and file refers to an existing ZIP file, then additional files are added to it. If file does not refer to a ZIP file, then a new ZIP archive is appended to the file. This is meant for adding a ZIP archive to another file (such as `python.exe`). If mode is `'a'` and the file does not exist at all, it is created. If mode is `'r'` or `'a'`, the file should be seekable.

  compression is the ZIP compression method to use when writing the archive, and should be `ZIP_STORED`, `ZIP_DEFLATED`, `ZIP_BZIP2` or `ZIP_LZMA`; unrecognized values will cause `NotImplementedError` to be raised. If `ZIP_DEFLATED`, `ZIP_BZIP2` or `ZIP_LZMA` is specified but the corresponding module (`zlib`, `bz2` or `lzma`) is not available, `RuntimeError` is raised. The default is `ZIP_STORED`.

  If allowZip64 is `True` (the default) zipfile will create ZIP files that use the ZIP64 extensions when the zipfile is larger than 4 GiB. If it is `false` `zipfile` will raise an exception when the ZIP file would require ZIP64 extensions.

  The compresslevel parameter controls the compression level to use when writing files to the archive. When using `ZIP_STORED` or `ZIP_LZMA` it has no effect. When using `ZIP_DEFLATED` integers `0` through `9` are accepted (see `zlib` for more information). When using `ZIP_BZIP2` integers `1` through `9` are accepted (see `bz2` for more information).

  The strict_timestamps argument, when set to `False`, allows to zip files older than 1980-01-01 at the cost of setting the timestamp to 1980-01-01. Similar behavior occurs with files newer than 2107-12-31, the timestamp is also set to the limit.

  When mode is `'r'`, metadata_encoding may be set to the name of a codec, which will be used to decode metadata such as the names of members and ZIP comments.

  If the file is created with mode `'w'`, `'x'` or `'a'` and then `closed` without adding any files to the archive, the appropriate ZIP structures for an empty archive will be written to the file.

  ZipFile is also a context manager and therefore supports the `with` statement. In the example, myzip is closed after the `with` statement’s suite is finished—even if an exception occurs:

      with ZipFile('spam.zip', 'w') as myzip:
          myzip.write('eggs.txt')

  Note

  metadata_encoding is an instance-wide setting for the ZipFile. It is not currently possible to set this on a per-member basis.

  This attribute is a workaround for legacy implementations which produce archives with names in the current locale encoding or code page (mostly on Windows). According to the .ZIP standard, the encoding of metadata may be specified to be either IBM code page (default) or UTF-8 by a flag in the archive header. That flag takes precedence over metadata_encoding, which is a Python-specific extension.

  Changed in version 3.2: Added the ability to use `ZipFile` as a context manager.

  Changed in version 3.3: Added support for `bzip2` and `lzma` compression.

  Changed in version 3.4: ZIP64 extensions are enabled by default.

  Changed in version 3.5: Added support for writing to unseekable streams. Added support for the `'x'` mode.

  Changed in version 3.6: Previously, a plain `RuntimeError` was raised for unrecognized compression values.

  Changed in version 3.6.2: The file parameter accepts a path-like object.

  Changed in version 3.7: Add the compresslevel parameter.

  Changed in version 3.8: The strict_timestamps keyword-only parameter.

  Changed in version 3.11: Added support for specifying member name encoding for reading metadata in the zipfile’s directory and file headers.

ZipFile.close()

  Close the archive file. You must call `close()` before exiting your program or essential records will not be written.

ZipFile.getinfo(name)

  Return a `ZipInfo` object with information about the archive member name. Calling `getinfo()` for a name not currently contained in the archive will raise a `KeyError`.

ZipFile.infolist()

  Return a list containing a `ZipInfo` object for each member of the archive. The objects are in the same order as their entries in the actual ZIP file on disk if an existing archive was opened.

ZipFile.namelist()

  Return a list of archive members by name.

ZipFile.open(name, mode='r', pwd=None, *, force_zip64=False)

  Access a member of the archive as a binary file-like object. name can be either the name of a file within the archive or a `ZipInfo` object. The mode parameter, if included, must be `'r'` (the default) or `'w'`. pwd is the password used to decrypt encrypted ZIP files as a `bytes` object.

  `open()` is also a context manager and therefore supports the `with` statement:

      with ZipFile('spam.zip') as myzip:
          with myzip.open('eggs.txt') as myfile:
              print(myfile.read())

  With mode `'r'` the file-like object (`ZipExtFile`) is read-only and provides the following methods: `read()`, `readline()`, `readlines()`, `seek()`, `tell()`, `__iter__()`, `__next__()`. These objects can operate independently of the ZipFile.

  With `mode='w'`, a writable file handle is returned, which supports the `write()` method. While a writable file handle is open, attempting to read or write other files in the ZIP file will raise a `ValueError`.

  In both cases the file-like object has also attributes `name`, which is equivalent to the name of a file within the archive, and `mode`, which is `'rb'` or `'wb'` depending on the input mode.

  When writing a file, if the file size is not known in advance but may exceed 2 GiB, pass `force_zip64=True` to ensure that the header format is capable of supporting large files. If the file size is known in advance, construct a `ZipInfo` object with `file_size` set, and use that as the name parameter.

  Note

  The `open()`, `read()` and `extract()` methods can take a filename or a `ZipInfo` object. You will appreciate this when trying to read a ZIP file that contains members with duplicate names.

  Changed in version 3.6: Removed support of `mode='U'`. Use `io.TextIOWrapper` for reading compressed text files in universal newlines mode.

  Changed in version 3.6: `ZipFile.open()` can now be used to write files into the archive with the `mode='w'` option.

  Changed in version 3.6: Calling `open()` on a closed ZipFile will raise a `ValueError`. Previously, a `RuntimeError` was raised.

  Changed in version 3.13: Added attributes `name` and `mode` for the writeable file-like object. The value of the `mode` attribute for the readable file-like object was changed from `'r'` to `'rb'`.

ZipFile.extract(member, path=None, pwd=None)

  Extract a member from the archive to the current working directory; member must be its full name or a `ZipInfo` object. Its file information is extracted as accurately as possible. path specifies a different directory to extract to. member can be a filename or a `ZipInfo` object. pwd is the password used for encrypted files as a `bytes` object.

  Returns the normalized path created (a directory or new file).

  Note

  If a member filename is an absolute path, a drive/UNC sharepoint and leading (back)slashes will be stripped, e.g.: `///foo/bar` becomes `foo/bar` on Unix, and `C:\foo\bar` becomes `foo\bar` on Windows. And all `".."` components in a member filename will be removed, e.g.: `../../foo../../ba..r` becomes `foo../ba..r`. On Windows illegal characters (`:`, `<`, `>`, `|`, `"`, `?`, and `*`) replaced by underscore (`_`).

  Changed in version 3.6: Calling `extract()` on a closed ZipFile will raise a `ValueError`. Previously, a `RuntimeError` was raised.

  Changed in version 3.6.2: The path parameter accepts a path-like object.

ZipFile.extractall(path=None, members=None, pwd=None)

  Extract all members from the archive to the current working directory. path specifies a different directory to extract to. members is optional and must be a subset of the list returned by `namelist()`. pwd is the password used for encrypted files as a `bytes` object.

  Warning

  Never extract archives from untrusted sources without prior inspection. It is possible that files are created outside of path, e.g. members that have absolute filenames starting with `"/"` or filenames with two dots `".."`. This module attempts to prevent that. See `extract()` note.

  Changed in version 3.6: Calling `extractall()` on a closed ZipFile will raise a `ValueError`. Previously, a `RuntimeError` was raised.

  Changed in version 3.6.2: The path parameter accepts a path-like object.

ZipFile.printdir()

  Print a table of contents for the archive to `sys.stdout`.

ZipFile.setpassword(pwd)

  Set pwd (a `bytes` object) as default password to extract encrypted files.

ZipFile.read(name, pwd=None)

  Return the bytes of the file name in the archive. name is the name of the file in the archive, or a `ZipInfo` object. The archive must be open for read or append. pwd is the password used for encrypted files as a `bytes` object and, if specified, overrides the default password set with `setpassword()`. Calling `read()` on a ZipFile that uses a compression method other than `ZIP_STORED`, `ZIP_DEFLATED`, `ZIP_BZIP2` or `ZIP_LZMA` will raise a `NotImplementedError`. An error will also be raised if the corresponding compression module is not available.

  Changed in version 3.6: Calling `read()` on a closed ZipFile will raise a `ValueError`. Previously, a `RuntimeError` was raised.

ZipFile.testzip()

  Read all the files in the archive and check their CRC’s and file headers. Return the name of the first bad file, or else return `None`.

  Changed in version 3.6: Calling `testzip()` on a closed ZipFile will raise a `ValueError`. Previously, a `RuntimeError` was raised.

ZipFile.write(filename, arcname=None, compress_type=None, compresslevel=None)

  Write the file named filename to the archive, giving it the archive name arcname (by default, this will be the same as filename, but without a drive letter and with leading path separators removed). If given, compress_type overrides the value given for the compression parameter to the constructor for the new entry. Similarly, compresslevel will override the constructor if given. The archive must be open with mode `'w'`, `'x'` or `'a'`.

  Note

  The ZIP file standard historically did not specify a metadata encoding, but strongly recommended CP437 (the original IBM PC encoding) for interoperability. Recent versions allow use of UTF-8 (only). In this module, UTF-8 will automatically be used to write the member names if they contain any non-ASCII characters. It is not possible to write member names in any encoding other than ASCII or UTF-8.

  Note

  Archive names should be relative to the archive root, that is, they should not start with a path separator.

  Note

  If `arcname` (or `filename`, if `arcname` is not given) contains a null byte, the name of the file in the archive will be truncated at the null byte.

  Note

  A leading slash in the filename may lead to the archive being impossible to open in some zip programs on Windows systems.

  Changed in version 3.6: Calling `write()` on a ZipFile created with mode `'r'` or a closed ZipFile will raise a `ValueError`. Previously, a `RuntimeError` was raised.

ZipFile.writestr(zinfo_or_arcname, data, compress_type=None, compresslevel=None)

  Write a file into the archive. The contents is data, which may be either a `str` or a `bytes` instance; if it is a `str`, it is encoded as UTF-8 first. zinfo_or_arcname is either the file name it will be given in the archive, or a `ZipInfo` instance. If it’s an instance, at least the filename, date, and time must be given. If it’s a name, the date and time is set to the current date and time. The archive must be opened with mode `'w'`, `'x'` or `'a'`.

  If given, compress_type overrides the value given for the compression parameter to the constructor for the new entry, or in the zinfo_or_arcname (if that is a `ZipInfo` instance). Similarly, compresslevel will override the constructor if given.

  Note

  When passing a `ZipInfo` instance as the zinfo_or_arcname parameter, the compression method used will be that specified in the compress_type member of the given `ZipInfo` instance. By default, the `ZipInfo` constructor sets this member to `ZIP_STORED`.

  Changed in version 3.2: The compress_type argument.

  Changed in version 3.6: Calling `writestr()` on a ZipFile created with mode `'r'` or a closed ZipFile will raise a `ValueError`. Previously, a `RuntimeError` was raised.

ZipFile.mkdir(zinfo_or_directory, mode=511)

  Create a directory inside the archive. If zinfo_or_directory is a string, a directory is created inside the archive with the mode that is specified in the mode argument. If, however, zinfo_or_directory is a `ZipInfo` instance then the mode argument is ignored.

  The archive must be opened with mode `'w'`, `'x'` or `'a'`.

  Added in version 3.11.

The following data attributes are also available:

ZipFile.filename

  Name of the ZIP file.

ZipFile.debug

  The level of debug output to use. This may be set from `0` (the default, no output) to `3` (the most output). Debugging information is written to `sys.stdout`.

ZipFile.comment

  The comment associated with the ZIP file as a `bytes` object. If assigning a comment to a `ZipFile` instance created with mode `'w'`, `'x'` or `'a'`, it should be no longer than 65535 bytes. Comments longer than this will be truncated.

## Path Objects

class zipfile.Path(root, at='')

  Construct a Path object from a `root` zipfile (which may be a `ZipFile` instance or `file` suitable for passing to the `ZipFile` constructor).

  `at` specifies the location of this Path within the zipfile, e.g. ‘dir/file.txt’, ‘dir/’, or ‘’. Defaults to the empty string, indicating the root.

Path objects expose the following features of `pathlib.Path` objects:

Path objects are traversable using the `/` operator or `joinpath`.

Path.name

  The final path component.

Path.open(mode='r', *, pwd, **)

  Invoke `ZipFile.open()` on the current path. Allows opening for read or write, text or binary through supported modes: ‘r’, ‘w’, ‘rb’, ‘wb’. Positional and keyword arguments are passed through to `io.TextIOWrapper` when opened as text and ignored otherwise. `pwd` is the `pwd` parameter to `ZipFile.open()`.

  Changed in version 3.9: Added support for text and binary modes for open. Default mode is now text.

  Changed in version 3.11.2: The `encoding` parameter can be supplied as a positional argument without causing a `TypeError`. As it could in 3.9. Code needing to be compatible with unpatched 3.10 and 3.11 versions must pass all `io.TextIOWrapper` arguments, `encoding` included, as keywords.

Path.iterdir()

  Enumerate the children of the current directory.

Path.is_dir()

  Return `True` if the current context references a directory.

Path.is_file()

  Return `True` if the current context references a file.

Path.is_symlink()

  Return `True` if the current context references a symbolic link.

  Added in version 3.12.

  Changed in version 3.13: Previously, `is_symlink` would unconditionally return `False`.

Path.exists()

  Return `True` if the current context references a file or directory in the zip file.

Path.suffix

  The last dot-separated portion of the final component, if any. This is commonly called the file extension.

  Added in version 3.11: Added `Path.suffix` property.

Path.stem

  The final path component, without its suffix.

  Added in version 3.11: Added `Path.stem` property.

Path.suffixes

  A list of the path’s suffixes, commonly called file extensions.

  Added in version 3.11: Added `Path.suffixes` property.

Path.read_text(*, **)

  Read the current file as unicode text. Positional and keyword arguments are passed through to `io.TextIOWrapper` (except `buffer`, which is implied by the context).

  Changed in version 3.11.2: The `encoding` parameter can be supplied as a positional argument without causing a `TypeError`. As it could in 3.9. Code needing to be compatible with unpatched 3.10 and 3.11 versions must pass all `io.TextIOWrapper` arguments, `encoding` included, as keywords.

Path.read_bytes()

  Read the current file as bytes.

Path.joinpath(*other)

  Return a new Path object with each of the other arguments joined. The following are equivalent:

      >>> Path(...).joinpath('child').joinpath('grandchild')
      >>> Path(...).joinpath('child', 'grandchild')
      >>> Path(...) / 'child' / 'grandchild'

  Changed in version 3.10: Prior to 3.10, `joinpath` was undocumented and accepted exactly one parameter.

The zipp project provides backports of the latest path object functionality to older Pythons. Use `zipp.Path` in place of `zipfile.Path` for early access to changes.

## PyZipFile Objects

The `PyZipFile` constructor takes the same parameters as the `ZipFile` constructor, and one additional parameter, optimize.

class zipfile.PyZipFile(file, mode='r', compression=ZIP_STORED, allowZip64=True, optimize=-1)

  Changed in version 3.2: Added the optimize parameter.

  Changed in version 3.4: ZIP64 extensions are enabled by default.

  Instances have one method in addition to those of `ZipFile` objects:

  writepy(pathname, basename='', filterfunc=None)

    Search for files `*.py` and add the corresponding file to the archive.

    If the optimize parameter to `PyZipFile` was not given or `-1`, the corresponding file is a `*.pyc` file, compiling if necessary.

    If the optimize parameter to `PyZipFile` was `0`, `1` or `2`, only files with that optimization level (see `compile()`) are added to the archive, compiling if necessary.

    If pathname is a file, the filename must end with `.py`, and just the (corresponding `*.pyc`) file is added at the top level (no path information). If pathname is a file that does not end with `.py`, a `RuntimeError` will be raised. If it is a directory, and the directory is not a package directory, then all the files `*.pyc` are added at the top level. If the directory is a package directory, then all `*.pyc` are added under the package name as a file path, and if any subdirectories are package directories, all of these are added recursively in sorted order.

    basename is intended for internal use only.

    filterfunc, if given, must be a function taking a single string argument. It will be passed each path (including each individual full file path) before it is added to the archive. If filterfunc returns a false value, the path will not be added, and if it is a directory its contents will be ignored. For example, if our test files are all either in `test` directories or start with the string `test_`, we can use a filterfunc to exclude them:

        >>> zf = PyZipFile('myprog.zip')
        >>> def notests(s):
        ...     fn = os.path.basename(s)
        ...     return (not (fn == 'test' or fn.startswith('test_')))
        ...
        >>> zf.writepy('myprog', filterfunc=notests)

    The `writepy()` method makes archives with file names like this:

        string.pyc                   # Top level name
        test/__init__.pyc            # Package directory
        test/testall.pyc             # Module test.testall
        test/bogus/__init__.pyc      # Subpackage directory
        test/bogus/myfile.pyc        # Submodule test.bogus.myfile

    Changed in version 3.4: Added the filterfunc parameter.

    Changed in version 3.6.2: The pathname parameter accepts a path-like object.

    Changed in version 3.7: Recursion sorts directory entries.

## ZipInfo Objects

Instances of the `ZipInfo` class are returned by the `getinfo()` and `infolist()` methods of `ZipFile` objects. Each object stores information about a single member of the ZIP archive.

There is one classmethod to make a `ZipInfo` instance for a filesystem file:

classmethod ZipInfo.from_file(filename, arcname=None, *, strict_timestamps=True)

  Construct a `ZipInfo` instance for a file on the filesystem, in preparation for adding it to a zip file.

  filename should be the path to a file or directory on the filesystem.

  If arcname is specified, it is used as the name within the archive. If arcname is not specified, the name will be the same as filename, but with any drive letter and leading path separators removed.

  The strict_timestamps argument, when set to `False`, allows to zip files older than 1980-01-01 at the cost of setting the timestamp to 1980-01-01. Similar behavior occurs with files newer than 2107-12-31, the timestamp is also set to the limit.

  Added in version 3.6.

  Changed in version 3.6.2: The filename parameter accepts a path-like object.

  Changed in version 3.8: Added the strict_timestamps keyword-only parameter.

Instances have the following methods and attributes:

ZipInfo.is_dir()

  Return `True` if this archive member is a directory.

  This uses the entry’s name: directories should always end with `/`.

  Added in version 3.6.

ZipInfo.filename

  Name of the file in the archive.

ZipInfo.date_time

  The time and date of the last modification to the archive member. This is a tuple of six values:

  Index | Value
  --- | ---
  `0` | Year (>= 1980)
  `1` | Month (one-based)
  `2` | Day of month (one-based)
  `3` | Hours (zero-based)
  `4` | Minutes (zero-based)
  `5` | Seconds (zero-based)

  Note

  The ZIP file format does not support timestamps before 1980.

ZipInfo.compress_type

  Type of compression for the archive member.

ZipInfo.comment

  Comment for the individual archive member as a `bytes` object.

ZipInfo.extra

  Expansion field data. The PKZIP Application Note contains some comments on the internal structure of the data contained in this `bytes` object.

ZipInfo.create_system

  System which created ZIP archive.

ZipInfo.create_version

  PKZIP version which created ZIP archive.

ZipInfo.extract_version

  PKZIP version needed to extract archive.

ZipInfo.reserved

  Must be zero.

ZipInfo.flag_bits

  ZIP flag bits.

ZipInfo.volume

  Volume number of file header.

ZipInfo.internal_attr

  Internal attributes.

ZipInfo.external_attr

  External file attributes.

ZipInfo.header_offset

  Byte offset to the file header.

ZipInfo.CRC

  CRC-32 of the uncompressed file.

ZipInfo.compress_size

  Size of the compressed data.

ZipInfo.file_size

  Size of the uncompressed file.

## Command-Line Interface

The `zipfile` module provides a simple command-line interface to interact with ZIP archives.

If you want to create a new ZIP archive, specify its name after the `-c` option and then list the filename(s) that should be included:

    $ python -m zipfile -c monty.zip spam.txt eggs.txt

Passing a directory is also acceptable:

    $ python -m zipfile -c monty.zip life-of-brian_1979/

If you want to extract a ZIP archive into the specified directory, use the `-e` option:

    $ python -m zipfile -e monty.zip target-dir/

For a list of the files in a ZIP archive, use the `-l` option:

    $ python -m zipfile -l monty.zip

### Command-line options

-l <zipfile>
--list <zipfile>

  List files in a zipfile.

-c <zipfile> <source1> ... <sourceN>
--create <zipfile> <source1> ... <sourceN>

  Create zipfile from source files.

-e <zipfile> <output_dir>
--extract <zipfile> <output_dir>

  Extract zipfile into target directory.

-t <zipfile>
--test <zipfile>

  Test whether the zipfile is valid or not.

--metadata-encoding <encoding>

  Specify encoding of member names for `-l`, `-e` and `-t`.

  Added in version 3.11.

## Decompression pitfalls

The extraction in zipfile module might fail due to some pitfalls listed below.

### From file itself

Decompression may fail due to incorrect password / CRC checksum / ZIP format or unsupported compression method / decryption.

### File System limitations

Exceeding limitations on different file systems can cause decompression failed. Such as allowable characters in the directory entries, length of the file name, length of the pathname, size of a single file, and number of files, etc.

### Resources limitations

The lack of memory or disk volume would lead to decompression failed. For example, decompression bombs (aka ZIP bomb) apply to zipfile library that can cause disk volume exhaustion.

### Interruption

Interruption during the decompression, such as pressing control-C or killing the decompression process may result in incomplete decompression of the archive.

### Default behaviors of extraction

Not knowing the default extraction behaviors can cause unexpected decompression results. For example, when extracting the same archive twice, it overwrites files without asking.