memory mapped tar file contents

[Aaron Brady]

On Nov 12, 8:51 pm, Chris Brooks <cab... at mail.usask.ca> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to read directly from a tar file into memory so I can
> manipulate a file (quickly) and write its changes out to another file.  I
> thought I could do something like:
>
> #!/usr/bin/env python
>
> import tarfile
> import mmap
>
> fil = tarfile.open( "out.tar.gz" , "r:gz" )
> tarinf = fil.next()
> myfils = {}
> while tarinf != None:
>     tarinf = fil.next()
>     ref = fil.extractfile( tarinf )
>     myfils[ tarinf.name ] = mmap.mmap( ref.fileno() , 0 )
>
> But the extractfile() function of TarInfo doesn't seem to give me a fileno,
> so I can't pass this to mmap.
>
> Thoughts on a way to accomplish this?

It appears you have to read the contents of the file into the mmap.
You can create an anonymous map of size tarinfoobj.size, then set
mapobj[:]= fil.extractfile( tarinf ).read( ) .  Untested.