# Data Compression and Archiving

The modules described in this chapter support data compression with the zlib, gzip, bzip2 and lzma algorithms, and the creation of ZIP- and tar-format archives. See also Archiving operations provided by the `shutil` module.

- `zlib` — Compression compatible with gzip
- `gzip` — Support for gzip files
  - Examples of usage
  - Command Line Interface
    - Command line options
- `bz2` — Support for bzip2 compression
  - (De)compression of files
  - Incremental (de)compression
  - One-shot (de)compression
  - Examples of usage
- `lzma` — Compression using the LZMA algorithm
  - Reading and writing compressed files
  - Compressing and decompressing data in memory
  - Miscellaneous
  - Specifying custom filter chains
  - Examples
- `zipfile` — Work with ZIP archives
  - ZipFile Objects
  - Path Objects
  - PyZipFile Objects
  - ZipInfo Objects
  - Command-Line Interface
    - Command-line options
  - Decompression pitfalls
    - From file itself
    - File System limitations
    - Resources limitations
    - Interruption
    - Default behaviors of extraction
- `tarfile` — Read and write tar archive files
  - TarFile Objects
  - TarInfo Objects
  - Command-Line Interface
    - Command-line options
  - Examples
  - Supported tar formats
  - Unicode issues