Download zip file via FTP and extract files in memory in Python

Question

I'm trying to download a zip file via ftp, but then extract the files inside without ever actually saving the zip. Any idea how I do this?

Answer 1

The ftplib module allows downloading files via FTP.

The zipfile module allows extracting files from a zip file.

Here's the key, the io.BytesIO class allows you to pass in-memory bytes to anything that expects a file. (In Python 2.x, the StringIO module provides similar functionality.)