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The documentation for the gzip python module as found at
http://docs.python.org/lib/module-gzip.html could be improved by code
examples. Those examples are really lacking.
Here below are the code snippets I propose. This is inspired by
http://xahlee.org/perl-python/python_doc_gzip.html but done with respect
and with another useful (I think) example.
# Example of how to decompress a file
import gzip
file_obj = gzip.GzipFile('/home/joe/file.txt.gz', 'rb');
file_content = file_obj.read()
file_obj.close()
# Example of how to create a compressed GZIP file
import gzip
file_content = "Lots of content here"
file_obj = gzip.GzipFile('/home/joe/file.txt.gz', 'wb');
file_obj.write(file_content)
file_content.close()
# Example of how to compress an existing file
import shutil
import gzip
file_obj_in = file('/home/joe/file.txt', 'rb')
file_obj_out = gzip.GzipFile('/home/joe/file.txt.gz', 'wb');
shutil.copyfileobj(file_obj_in, file_obj_out)
file_obj_out.close()
Best regards.

Hello,
(some comments)
What about using gzip.open instead of GzipFile ? It is just a shorthand,
but I prefer it (just my opinion). Also, remove those semicolons.
At the second example you called close on the string object, I guess you
intended to do file_obj.close()
In the third example you used "file", please change that to "open". In
this sample example, you don't need to use shutil. I suggest changing it to:
import gzip
f_in = open('/home/joe/file.txt', 'rb')
f_out = gzip.open('/home/joe/file.txt.gz', 'wb');
f_out.writelines(f_in)
file_obj_out.close()
f_out.close()
Finally, consider doing these changes against Doc/library/gzip.rst and
sending the diff

Thanks Guilherme (I hope Guilherme is your first name) for your very
constructive answer. I'll do exactly as you suggest.
Regards

Here is the diff of the suggested modifications, which include Guilherme
remarks.
This is the kind of doc I would have like to read when I needed it.
Regards.

If I could I would commit it, but you have my support on this one
nevertheless ;)

Committed patch in r61999. Thanks!

Hello, I think the example code snippets are awesome and no doubts, they helped me a lot.
The only problem is that they are not idiomatic. They look like C more than Python.
I suggest following patch

Jakub, thanks for your suggested changes. But this issue was closed and the documentation updated many years ago. Please open a new issue with your suggested changes, otherwise they will likely be forgotten and ignored.