Convert string to path to use it with Unzip in Google Colaboratory

Question

I'm working with a Jupyter notebook in Google Colaboratory and I want to unzip file that it is on my Google Drive into /tmp folder.

I have tried this:

import os

root_dir = '/tmp/omniglot/data/'
!unzip '/content/gdrive/My Drive/Colab Notebooks/data/omniglot.zip' -d path.path(root_dir)

But I get the error:

syntax error near unexpected token `('

I have also tried:

from pathlib import Path

root_dir = '/tmp/omniglot/data/'
!unzip '/content/gdrive/My Drive/Colab Notebooks/data/omniglot.zip' -d Path(str_path)

But I get the same error.

How can I use the string root_dir with unzip?

My Python version is 3.6.9.

Answer 1

Use {varname} syntax to pass Python variables into the shell.

import os

root_dir = '/tmp/omniglot/data/'
os.makedirs(root_dir, exist_ok=True)  # Create a target directory if doesn't exist

!unzip '/content/gdrive/My Drive/Colab Notebooks/data/omniglot.zip' -d {root_dir}

You can also use zipfile from standard library.

import zipfile

root_dir = '/tmp/omniglot/data/'
zip_file = '/content/gdrive/My Drive/Colab Notebooks/data/omniglot.zip'

with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file, 'r') as zip_ref:
    zip_ref.extractall(root_dir)