Help with python-list archives

[Ian Kelly]

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 4:52 PM, random joe <pywin32 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sure. Take the most recent file as example. "2012 - January.txt.gz".
> If you use the python doc example this is the result. If i use "r" or
> "rb" the result is the same.
>
>>>> import gzip
>>>> f1 = gzip.open('C:\\2012-January.txt.gz', 'rb')
>>>> data = f1.read()
>>>> data[:100]
> '\x1f\x8b\x08\x08x\n\x05O\x02\xff/srv/mailman/archives/private/python-
> list/2012-January.txt\x00\xec\xbdy\x7f\xdb\xc6\xb50\xfcw\xf0)\xa6z|+
> \xaa!!l\xdc\x14[\x8b-;V\xe2-\x92\x12'
>>>> f2 = gzip.open('C:\\2012-January.txt.gz', 'r')
>>>> data = f2.read()
>>>> data[:100]
> '\x1f\x8b\x08\x08x\n\x05O\x02\xff/srv/mailman/archives/private/python-
> list/2012-January.txt\x00\xec\xbdy\x7f\xdb\xc6\xb50\xfcw\xf0)\xa6z|+
> \xaa!!l\xdc\x14[\x8b-;V\xe2-\x92\x12'
>
> The docs and google provide no clear answer. I even tried 7zip and
> ended up with nothing but gibberish characters. There must be levels
> of compression or something. Why could they not simply use the tar
> format? Is there anywhere else one can download the archives?

Interesting.  I tried this on a Linux system using both gunzip and
your code, and both worked fine to extract that file.  I also tried
your code on a Windows system, and I get the same result that you do.
This appears to be a bug in the gzip module under Windows.

I think there may be something peculiar about the archive files that
the module is not handling correctly.  If I gunzip the file locally
and then gzip it again before trying to open it in Python, then
everything seems to be fine.