Python: Untar file and change directory to extracted folder

Question

How do I untar file in mac using python and change the working directory to the extracted folder? I wrote below code which works if untarred folder has same name as the tar.gz file but if there is a difference then throws me an error that it could not change the directory? How can I improve this code?

import sys
file = sys.argv[-1] # get user input

import os
dir = os.path.dirname(file) # get directory where file is stored

filename = os.path.basename(file) # get filename

file_tar, file_tar_ext = os.path.splitext(file) # split into file.tar and .gz

file_untar, file_untar_ext = os.path.splitext(file_tar) #split into file and .tar

os.chdir(dir)
    if file_tar_ext == ".gz" and file_untar_ext == ".tar": # check if file had format .tar.gz 

        import tarfile
        tar = tarfile.open(filename) 
        tar.extractall(path=dir) # untar file into same directory

        tar.close()

        os.chdir(file_untar) # This fails if file.tar.gz has different name compared to the untarred folder e.g.. file1 instead of file

Thanks Abdus

[MOD: added ```python formatting -cf]

Answer 1 · 2017-02-17T20:44:12Z

February 17, 2017 8:44pm

Hmm, I haven't ever tried this. You could use os.listdir() to get a list of all of the files and directories in the directory, then untar the file, then get the list again. Find the difference between them (set.difference() would work, I'd think), and then os.chdir into that new directory?

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Abdus Samad

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Python: Untar file and change directory to extracted folder

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Kenneth Love

Kenneth Love