How to extract a specific file from the .tar archive in python?

Question

I have created a .tar file on a Linux machine as follows:

tar cvf test.tar test_folder/

where the test_folder contains some files as shown below:

test_folder 
|___ file1.jpg
|___ file2.jpg
|___ ...

I am unable to programmatically extract the individual files within the tar archive using Python. More specifically, I have tried the following:

import tarfile
with tarfile.open('test.tar', 'r:') as tar:
    img_file = tar.extractfile('test_folder/file1.jpg')
    # img_file contains the object: <ExFileObject name='test_folder/test.tar'>

Here, the img_file does not seem to contain the requested image, but rather it contains the source .tar file. I am not sure, where I am messing things up. Any suggestions would be really helpful. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Appending 2 lines to your code will solve your problem:

import tarfile

with tarfile.open('test.tar', 'r:') as tar:
    img_file = tar.extractfile('test_folder/file1.jpg')
    
    # --------------------- Add this ---------------------------
    with open ("img_file.jpg", "wb") as outfile:
        outfile.write(img_file.read())

---

The explanation:

The .extractfile() method only provided you the content of the extracted file (i.e. its data).

        It don't extract any file to the file system.

So you have do it yourself - by reading this returned content (img_file.read()) and writing it into a file of your choice (outfile.write(...)).

---

Or — to simplify your life — use the .extract() method instead. See my other answer.