It implements a complete file interface, one-shot (de)compression functions, and
types for sequential (de)compression.
-Here is a resume of the features offered by the bz2 module:
+For other archive formats, see the :mod:`gzip`, :mod:`zipfile`, and
+:mod:`tarfile` modules.
+
+Here is a summary of the features offered by the bz2 module:
* :class:`BZ2File` class implements a complete file interface, including
:meth:`readline`, :meth:`readlines`, :meth:`writelines`, :meth:`seek`, etc;
* One-shot (de)compression supported by :func:`compress` and :func:`decompress`
functions;
-* Thread safety uses individual locking mechanism;
-
-* Complete inline documentation;
+* Thread safety uses individual locking mechanism.
(De)compression of files
programs, such as those produced by :program:`compress` and :program:`pack`,
are not supported by this module.
+For other archive formats, see the :mod:`bz2`, :mod:`zipfile`, and
+:mod:`tarfile` modules.
+
The module defines the following items:
.. sectionauthor:: Lars Gustäbel <lars@gustaebel.de>
-The :mod:`tarfile` module makes it possible to read and create tar archives.
+The :mod:`tarfile` module makes it possible to read and write tar
+archives, including those using gzip or bz2 compression.
+(`.zip` files can be read and written using the :mod:`zipfile` module.)
+
Some facts and figures:
-* reads and writes :mod:`gzip` and :mod:`bzip2` compressed archives.
+* reads and writes :mod:`gzip` and :mod:`bz2` compressed archives.
* read/write support for the POSIX.1-1988 (ustar) format.
This module does not currently handle ZIP files which have appended comments, or
multi-disk ZIP files. It can handle ZIP files that use the ZIP64 extensions
(that is ZIP files that are more than 4 GByte in size). It supports decryption
-of encrypted files in ZIP archives, but it cannot currently create an encrypted
+of encrypted files in ZIP archives, but it currently cannot create an encrypted
file.
-The available attributes of this module are:
+For other archive formats, see the :mod:`bz2`, :mod:`gzip`, and
+:mod:`tarfile` modules.
+The module defines the following items:
.. exception:: BadZipfile
consult the zlib manual at http://www.zlib.net/manual.html for authoritative
information.
+For reading and writing ``.gz`` files see the :mod:`gzip` module. For
+other archive formats, see the :mod:`bz2`, :mod:`zipfile`, and
+:mod:`tarfile` modules.
+
The available exception and functions in this module are: