Hi, I just tried to directly open a tar file from an URL: ---------------------8<------------------------------- import urllib2 import tarfile url = "http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/hello-2.8.tar.gz" tar = tarfile.open(fileobj = urllib2.urlopen(url)) tar.extractall() ---------------------8<------------------------------- This doesn't work since urllib2.urlopen() does not return a seekable file, but tarfile.open() expects one. This limitation is not mentioned in the documentation of urlopen(), instead is misleadingly states: "This function returns a file-like object with two additional methods: [...]" I would suggest to add here that the returned object is not seekable, or a "Socket-like" object or similar. Oh, and the object has *three* additional methods, not two (geturl(), info(), getcode()). Please include me in an replay as I am not subscribed to the list. Best regards Ole