:mod:`tarfile` --- Read and write tar archive files

.. module:: tarfile :synopsis: Read and write tar-format archive files.

.. moduleauthor:: Lars Gustäbel [email protected] .. sectionauthor:: Lars Gustäbel [email protected]

Source code: :source:Lib/tarfile.py

The :mod:tarfile module makes it possible to read and write tar archives, including those using gzip, bz2 and lzma compression. Use the :mod:zipfile module to read or write :file:.zip files, or the higher-level functions in :ref:shutil <archiving-operations>.

Some facts and figures:

reads and writes :mod:gzip, :mod:bz2 and :mod:lzma compressed archives if the respective modules are available.
read/write support for the POSIX.1-1988 (ustar) format.
read/write support for the GNU tar format including longname and longlink extensions, read-only support for all variants of the sparse extension including restoration of sparse files.
read/write support for the POSIX.1-2001 (pax) format.
handles directories, regular files, hardlinks, symbolic links, fifos, character devices and block devices and is able to acquire and restore file information like timestamp, access permissions and owner.

.. versionchanged:: 3.3 Added support for :mod:lzma compression.

.. function:: open(name=None, mode='r', fileobj=None, bufsize=10240, **kwargs)

Return a :class:TarFile object for the pathname name. For detailed information on :class:TarFile objects and the keyword arguments that are allowed, see :ref:tarfile-objects.

mode has to be a string of the form 'filemode[:compression]', it defaults to 'r'. Here is a full list of mode combinations:

+------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | mode | action | +==================+=============================================+ | 'r' or 'r:*' | Open for reading with transparent | | | compression (recommended). | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'r:' | Open for reading exclusively without | | | compression. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'r:gz' | Open for reading with gzip compression. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'r:bz2' | Open for reading with bzip2 compression. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'r:xz' | Open for reading with lzma compression. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'x' or | Create a tarfile exclusively without | | 'x:' | compression. | | | Raise an :exc:FileExistsError exception | | | if it already exists. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'x:gz' | Create a tarfile with gzip compression. | | | Raise an :exc:FileExistsError exception | | | if it already exists. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'x:bz2' | Create a tarfile with bzip2 compression. | | | Raise an :exc:FileExistsError exception | | | if it already exists. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'x:xz' | Create a tarfile with lzma compression. | | | Raise an :exc:FileExistsError exception | | | if it already exists. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'a' or 'a:' | Open for appending with no compression. The | | | file is created if it does not exist. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'w' or 'w:' | Open for uncompressed writing. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'w:gz' | Open for gzip compressed writing. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'w:bz2' | Open for bzip2 compressed writing. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 'w:xz' | Open for lzma compressed writing. | +------------------+---------------------------------------------+

Note that 'a:gz', 'a:bz2' or 'a:xz' is not possible. If mode is not suitable to open a certain (compressed) file for reading, :exc:ReadError is raised. Use mode 'r' to avoid this. If a compression method is not supported, :exc:CompressionError is raised.

If fileobj is specified, it is used as an alternative to a :term:file object opened in binary mode for name. It is supposed to be at position 0.

For modes 'w:gz', 'r:gz', 'w:bz2', 'r:bz2', 'x:gz', 'x:bz2', :func:tarfile.open accepts the keyword argument compresslevel (default 9) to specify the compression level of the file.

For special purposes, there is a second format for mode: 'filemode|[compression]'. :func:tarfile.open will return a :class:TarFile object that processes its data as a stream of blocks. No random seeking will be done on the file. If given, fileobj may be any object that has a :meth:read or :meth:write method (depending on the mode). bufsize specifies the blocksize and defaults to 20 * 512 bytes. Use this variant in combination with e.g. sys.stdin, a socket :term:file object or a tape device. However, such a :class:TarFile object is limited in that it does not allow random access, see :ref:tar-examples. The currently possible modes:

+-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | Mode | Action | +=============+============================================+ | 'r|*' | Open a stream of tar blocks for reading | | | with transparent compression. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | 'r|' | Open a stream of uncompressed tar blocks | | | for reading. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | 'r|gz' | Open a gzip compressed stream for | | | reading. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | 'r|bz2' | Open a bzip2 compressed stream for | | | reading. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | 'r|xz' | Open an lzma compressed stream for | | | reading. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | 'w|' | Open an uncompressed stream for writing. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | 'w|gz' | Open a gzip compressed stream for | | | writing. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | 'w|bz2' | Open a bzip2 compressed stream for | | | writing. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+ | 'w|xz' | Open an lzma compressed stream for | | | writing. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------+

.. versionchanged:: 3.5 The 'x' (exclusive creation) mode was added.

.. versionchanged:: 3.6 The name parameter accepts a :term:path-like object.

.. class:: TarFile

Class for reading and writing tar archives. Do not use this class directly: use :func:tarfile.open instead. See :ref:tarfile-objects.

.. function:: is_tarfile(name)

Return :const:True if name is a tar archive file, that the :mod:tarfile module can read.

The :mod:tarfile module defines the following exceptions:

.. exception:: TarError

Base class for all :mod:tarfile exceptions.

.. exception:: ReadError

Is raised when a tar archive is opened, that either cannot be handled by the :mod:tarfile module or is somehow invalid.

.. exception:: CompressionError

Is raised when a compression method is not supported or when the data cannot be decoded properly.

.. exception:: StreamError

Is raised for the limitations that are typical for stream-like :class:TarFile objects.

.. exception:: ExtractError

Is raised for non-fatal errors when using :meth:TarFile.extract, but only if :attr:TarFile.errorlevel\ == 2.

.. exception:: HeaderError

Is raised by :meth:TarInfo.frombuf if the buffer it gets is invalid.

The following constants are available at the module level:

.. data:: ENCODING

The default character encoding: 'utf-8' on Windows, the value returned by :func:sys.getfilesystemencoding otherwise.

Each of the following constants defines a tar archive format that the :mod:tarfile module is able to create. See section :ref:tar-formats for details.

.. data:: USTAR_FORMAT

POSIX.1-1988 (ustar) format.

.. data:: GNU_FORMAT

GNU tar format.

.. data:: PAX_FORMAT

POSIX.1-2001 (pax) format.

.. data:: DEFAULT_FORMAT

The default format for creating archives. This is currently :const:GNU_FORMAT.

.. seealso::

Module :mod:zipfile Documentation of the :mod:zipfile standard module.

:ref:archiving-operations Documentation of the higher-level archiving facilities provided by the standard :mod:shutil module.

GNU tar manual, Basic Tar Format <https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_node/Standard.html>_ Documentation for tar archive files, including GNU tar extensions.

.. _tarfile-objects:

TarFile Objects

The :class:TarFile object provides an interface to a tar archive. A tar archive is a sequence of blocks. An archive member (a stored file) is made up of a header block followed by data blocks. It is possible to store a file in a tar archive several times. Each archive member is represented by a :class:TarInfo object, see :ref:tarinfo-objects for details.

A :class:TarFile object can be used as a context manager in a :keyword:with statement. It will automatically be closed when the block is completed. Please note that in the event of an exception an archive opened for writing will not be finalized; only the internally used file object will be closed. See the :ref:tar-examples section for a use case.

.. versionadded:: 3.2 Added support for the context management protocol.

.. class:: TarFile(name=None, mode='r', fileobj=None, format=DEFAULT_FORMAT, tarinfo=TarInfo, dereference=False, ignore_zeros=False, encoding=ENCODING, errors='surrogateescape', pax_headers=None, debug=0, errorlevel=0)

All following arguments are optional and can be accessed as instance attributes as well.

name is the pathname of the archive. name may be a :term:path-like object. It can be omitted if fileobj is given. In this case, the file object's :attr:name attribute is used if it exists.

mode is either 'r' to read from an existing archive, 'a' to append data to an existing file, 'w' to create a new file overwriting an existing one, or 'x' to create a new file only if it does not already exist.

If fileobj is given, it is used for reading or writing data. If it can be determined, mode is overridden by fileobj's mode. fileobj will be used from position 0.

.. note::

  *fileobj* is not closed, when :class:`TarFile` is closed.

format controls the archive format. It must be one of the constants :const:USTAR_FORMAT, :const:GNU_FORMAT or :const:PAX_FORMAT that are defined at module level.

The tarinfo argument can be used to replace the default :class:TarInfo class with a different one.

If dereference is :const:False, add symbolic and hard links to the archive. If it is :const:True, add the content of the target files to the archive. This has no effect on systems that do not support symbolic links.

If ignore_zeros is :const:False, treat an empty block as the end of the archive. If it is :const:True, skip empty (and invalid) blocks and try to get as many members as possible. This is only useful for reading concatenated or damaged archives.

debug can be set from 0 (no debug messages) up to 3 (all debug messages). The messages are written to sys.stderr.

If errorlevel is 0, all errors are ignored when using :meth:TarFile.extract. Nevertheless, they appear as error messages in the debug output, when debugging is enabled. If 1, all fatal errors are raised as :exc:OSError exceptions. If 2, all non-fatal errors are raised as :exc:TarError exceptions as well.

The encoding and errors arguments define the character encoding to be used for reading or writing the archive and how conversion errors are going to be handled. The default settings will work for most users. See section :ref:tar-unicode for in-depth information.

The pax_headers argument is an optional dictionary of strings which will be added as a pax global header if format is :const:PAX_FORMAT.

.. versionchanged:: 3.2 Use 'surrogateescape' as the default for the errors argument.

.. versionchanged:: 3.5 The 'x' (exclusive creation) mode was added.

.. versionchanged:: 3.6 The name parameter accepts a :term:path-like object.

.. classmethod:: TarFile.open(...)

Alternative constructor. The :func:tarfile.open function is actually a shortcut to this classmethod.

.. method:: TarFile.getmember(name)

Return a :class:TarInfo object for member name. If name can not be found in the archive, :exc:KeyError is raised.

.. note::

  If a member occurs more than once in the archive, its last occurrence is assumed
  to be the most up-to-date version.

.. method:: TarFile.getmembers()

Return the members of the archive as a list of :class:TarInfo objects. The list has the same order as the members in the archive.

.. method:: TarFile.getnames()

Return the members as a list of their names. It has the same order as the list returned by :meth:getmembers.

.. method:: TarFile.list(verbose=True, *, members=None)

Print a table of contents to sys.stdout. If verbose is :const:False, only the names of the members are printed. If it is :const:True, output similar to that of :program:ls -l is produced. If optional members is given, it must be a subset of the list returned by :meth:getmembers.

.. versionchanged:: 3.5 Added the members parameter.

.. method:: TarFile.next()

Return the next member of the archive as a :class:TarInfo object, when :class:TarFile is opened for reading. Return :const:None if there is no more available.

.. method:: TarFile.extractall(path=".", members=None, *, numeric_owner=False)

Extract all members from the archive to the current working directory or directory path. If optional members is given, it must be a subset of the list returned by :meth:getmembers. Directory information like owner, modification time and permissions are set after all members have been extracted. This is done to work around two problems: A directory's modification time is reset each time a file is created in it. And, if a directory's permissions do not allow writing, extracting files to it will fail.

If numeric_owner is :const:True, the uid and gid numbers from the tarfile are used to set the owner/group for the extracted files. Otherwise, the named values from the tarfile are used.

.. warning::

  Never extract archives from untrusted sources without prior inspection.
  It is possible that files are created outside of *path*, e.g. members
  that have absolute filenames starting with ``"/"`` or filenames with two
  dots ``".."``.

.. versionchanged:: 3.5 Added the numeric_owner parameter.

.. versionchanged:: 3.6 The path parameter accepts a :term:path-like object.

.. method:: TarFile.extract(member, path="", set_attrs=True, *, numeric_owner=False)

Extract a member from the archive to the current working directory, using its full name. Its file information is extracted as accurately as possible. member may be a filename or a :class:TarInfo object. You can specify a different directory using path. path may be a :term:path-like object. File attributes (owner, mtime, mode) are set unless set_attrs is false.

If numeric_owner is :const:True, the uid and gid numbers from the tarfile are used to set the owner/group for the extracted files. Otherwise, the named values from the tarfile are used.

.. note::

  The :meth:`extract` method does not take care of several extraction issues.
  In most cases you should consider using the :meth:`extractall` method.

.. warning::

  See the warning for :meth:`extractall`.

.. versionchanged:: 3.2 Added the set_attrs parameter.

.. versionchanged:: 3.5 Added the numeric_owner parameter.

.. versionchanged:: 3.6 The path parameter accepts a :term:path-like object.

.. method:: TarFile.extractfile(member)

Extract a member from the archive as a file object. member may be a filename or a :class:TarInfo object. If member is a regular file or a link, an :class:io.BufferedReader object is returned. Otherwise, :const:None is returned.

.. versionchanged:: 3.3 Return an :class:io.BufferedReader object.

.. method:: TarFile.add(name, arcname=None, recursive=True, *, filter=None)

Add the file name to the archive. name may be any type of file (directory, fifo, symbolic link, etc.). If given, arcname specifies an alternative name for the file in the archive. Directories are added recursively by default. This can be avoided by setting recursive to :const:False. Recursion adds entries in sorted order. If filter is given, it should be a function that takes a :class:TarInfo object argument and returns the changed :class:TarInfo object. If it instead returns :const:None the :class:TarInfo object will be excluded from the archive. See :ref:tar-examples for an example.

.. versionchanged:: 3.2 Added the filter parameter.

.. versionchanged:: 3.7 Recursion adds entries in sorted order.

.. method:: TarFile.addfile(tarinfo, fileobj=None)

Add the :class:TarInfo object tarinfo to the archive. If fileobj is given, it should be a :term:binary file, and tarinfo.size bytes are read from it and added to the archive. You can create :class:TarInfo objects directly, or by using :meth:gettarinfo.

.. method:: TarFile.gettarinfo(name=None, arcname=None, fileobj=None)

Create a :class:TarInfo object from the result of :func:os.stat or equivalent on an existing file. The file is either named by name, or specified as a :term:file object fileobj with a file descriptor. name may be a :term:path-like object. If given, arcname specifies an alternative name for the file in the archive, otherwise, the name is taken from fileobj’s :attr:~io.FileIO.name attribute, or the name argument. The name should be a text string.

You can modify some of the :class:TarInfo’s attributes before you add it using :meth:addfile. If the file object is not an ordinary file object positioned at the beginning of the file, attributes such as :attr:~TarInfo.size may need modifying. This is the case for objects such as :class:~gzip.GzipFile. The :attr:~TarInfo.name may also be modified, in which case arcname could be a dummy string.

.. versionchanged:: 3.6 The name parameter accepts a :term:path-like object.

.. method:: TarFile.close()

Close the :class:TarFile. In write mode, two finishing zero blocks are appended to the archive.

.. attribute:: TarFile.pax_headers

A dictionary containing key-value pairs of pax global headers.

.. _tarinfo-objects:

TarInfo Objects

A :class:TarInfo object represents one member in a :class:TarFile. Aside from storing all required attributes of a file (like file type, size, time, permissions, owner etc.), it provides some useful methods to determine its type. It does not contain the file's data itself.

:class:TarInfo objects are returned by :class:TarFile's methods :meth:getmember, :meth:getmembers and :meth:gettarinfo.

.. class:: TarInfo(name="")

Create a :class:TarInfo object.

.. classmethod:: TarInfo.frombuf(buf, encoding, errors)

Create and return a :class:TarInfo object from string buffer buf.

Raises :exc:HeaderError if the buffer is invalid.

.. classmethod:: TarInfo.fromtarfile(tarfile)

Read the next member from the :class:TarFile object tarfile and return it as a :class:TarInfo object.

.. method:: TarInfo.tobuf(format=DEFAULT_FORMAT, encoding=ENCODING, errors='surrogateescape')

Create a string buffer from a :class:TarInfo object. For information on the arguments see the constructor of the :class:TarFile class.

.. versionchanged:: 3.2 Use 'surrogateescape' as the default for the errors argument.

A TarInfo object has the following public data attributes:

.. attribute:: TarInfo.name

Name of the archive member.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.size

Size in bytes.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.mtime

Time of last modification.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.mode

Permission bits.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.type

File type. type is usually one of these constants: :const:REGTYPE, :const:AREGTYPE, :const:LNKTYPE, :const:SYMTYPE, :const:DIRTYPE, :const:FIFOTYPE, :const:CONTTYPE, :const:CHRTYPE, :const:BLKTYPE, :const:GNUTYPE_SPARSE. To determine the type of a :class:TarInfo object more conveniently, use the is*() methods below.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.linkname

Name of the target file name, which is only present in :class:TarInfo objects of type :const:LNKTYPE and :const:SYMTYPE.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.uid

User ID of the user who originally stored this member.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.gid

Group ID of the user who originally stored this member.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.uname

User name.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.gname

Group name.

.. attribute:: TarInfo.pax_headers

A dictionary containing key-value pairs of an associated pax extended header.

A :class:TarInfo object also provides some convenient query methods:

.. method:: TarInfo.isfile()

Return :const:True if the :class:Tarinfo object is a regular file.

.. method:: TarInfo.isreg()

Same as :meth:isfile.

.. method:: TarInfo.isdir()

Return :const:True if it is a directory.

.. method:: TarInfo.issym()

Return :const:True if it is a symbolic link.

.. method:: TarInfo.islnk()

Return :const:True if it is a hard link.

.. method:: TarInfo.ischr()

Return :const:True if it is a character device.

.. method:: TarInfo.isblk()

Return :const:True if it is a block device.

.. method:: TarInfo.isfifo()

Return :const:True if it is a FIFO.

.. method:: TarInfo.isdev()

Return :const:True if it is one of character device, block device or FIFO.

.. _tarfile-commandline: .. program:: tarfile

Command-Line Interface

.. versionadded:: 3.4

The :mod:tarfile module provides a simple command-line interface to interact with tar archives.

If you want to create a new tar archive, specify its name after the :option:-c option and then list the filename(s) that should be included:

.. code-block:: shell-session

$ python -m tarfile -c monty.tar  spam.txt eggs.txt

Passing a directory is also acceptable:

.. code-block:: shell-session

$ python -m tarfile -c monty.tar life-of-brian_1979/

If you want to extract a tar archive into the current directory, use the :option:-e option:

.. code-block:: shell-session

$ python -m tarfile -e monty.tar

You can also extract a tar archive into a different directory by passing the directory's name:

.. code-block:: shell-session

$ python -m tarfile -e monty.tar  other-dir/

For a list of the files in a tar archive, use the :option:-l option:

.. code-block:: shell-session

$ python -m tarfile -l monty.tar

Command-line options


.. cmdoption:: -l <tarfile>
               --list <tarfile>

   List files in a tarfile.

.. cmdoption:: -c <tarfile> <source1> ... <sourceN>
               --create <tarfile> <source1> ... <sourceN>

   Create tarfile from source files.

.. cmdoption:: -e <tarfile> [<output_dir>]
               --extract <tarfile> [<output_dir>]

   Extract tarfile into the current directory if *output_dir* is not specified.

.. cmdoption:: -t <tarfile>
               --test <tarfile>

   Test whether the tarfile is valid or not.

.. cmdoption:: -v, --verbose

   Verbose output.

.. _tar-examples:

Examples
--------

How to extract an entire tar archive to the current working directory::

   import tarfile
   tar = tarfile.open("sample.tar.gz")
   tar.extractall()
   tar.close()

How to extract a subset of a tar archive with :meth:`TarFile.extractall` using
a generator function instead of a list::

   import os
   import tarfile

   def py_files(members):
       for tarinfo in members:
           if os.path.splitext(tarinfo.name)[1] == ".py":
               yield tarinfo

   tar = tarfile.open("sample.tar.gz")
   tar.extractall(members=py_files(tar))
   tar.close()

How to create an uncompressed tar archive from a list of filenames::

   import tarfile
   tar = tarfile.open("sample.tar", "w")
   for name in ["foo", "bar", "quux"]:
       tar.add(name)
   tar.close()

The same example using the :keyword:`with` statement::

    import tarfile
    with tarfile.open("sample.tar", "w") as tar:
        for name in ["foo", "bar", "quux"]:
            tar.add(name)

How to read a gzip compressed tar archive and display some member information::

   import tarfile
   tar = tarfile.open("sample.tar.gz", "r:gz")
   for tarinfo in tar:
       print(tarinfo.name, "is", tarinfo.size, "bytes in size and is", end="")
       if tarinfo.isreg():
           print("a regular file.")
       elif tarinfo.isdir():
           print("a directory.")
       else:
           print("something else.")
   tar.close()

How to create an archive and reset the user information using the *filter*
parameter in :meth:`TarFile.add`::

    import tarfile
    def reset(tarinfo):
        tarinfo.uid = tarinfo.gid = 0
        tarinfo.uname = tarinfo.gname = "root"
        return tarinfo
    tar = tarfile.open("sample.tar.gz", "w:gz")
    tar.add("foo", filter=reset)
    tar.close()


.. _tar-formats:

Supported tar formats
---------------------

There are three tar formats that can be created with the :mod:`tarfile` module:

* The POSIX.1-1988 ustar format (:const:`USTAR_FORMAT`). It supports filenames
  up to a length of at best 256 characters and linknames up to 100 characters. The
  maximum file size is 8 GiB. This is an old and limited but widely
  supported format.

* The GNU tar format (:const:`GNU_FORMAT`). It supports long filenames and
  linknames, files bigger than 8 GiB and sparse files. It is the de facto
  standard on GNU/Linux systems. :mod:`tarfile` fully supports the GNU tar
  extensions for long names, sparse file support is read-only.

* The POSIX.1-2001 pax format (:const:`PAX_FORMAT`). It is the most flexible
  format with virtually no limits. It supports long filenames and linknames, large
  files and stores pathnames in a portable way. However, not all tar
  implementations today are able to handle pax archives properly.

  The *pax* format is an extension to the existing *ustar* format. It uses extra
  headers for information that cannot be stored otherwise. There are two flavours
  of pax headers: Extended headers only affect the subsequent file header, global
  headers are valid for the complete archive and affect all following files. All
  the data in a pax header is encoded in *UTF-8* for portability reasons.

There are some more variants of the tar format which can be read, but not
created:

* The ancient V7 format. This is the first tar format from Unix Seventh Edition,
  storing only regular files and directories. Names must not be longer than 100
  characters, there is no user/group name information. Some archives have
  miscalculated header checksums in case of fields with non-ASCII characters.

* The SunOS tar extended format. This format is a variant of the POSIX.1-2001
  pax format, but is not compatible.

.. _tar-unicode:

Unicode issues
--------------

The tar format was originally conceived to make backups on tape drives with the
main focus on preserving file system information. Nowadays tar archives are
commonly used for file distribution and exchanging archives over networks. One
problem of the original format (which is the basis of all other formats) is
that there is no concept of supporting different character encodings. For
example, an ordinary tar archive created on a *UTF-8* system cannot be read
correctly on a *Latin-1* system if it contains non-*ASCII* characters. Textual
metadata (like filenames, linknames, user/group names) will appear damaged.
Unfortunately, there is no way to autodetect the encoding of an archive. The
pax format was designed to solve this problem. It stores non-ASCII metadata
using the universal character encoding *UTF-8*.

The details of character conversion in :mod:`tarfile` are controlled by the
*encoding* and *errors* keyword arguments of the :class:`TarFile` class.

*encoding* defines the character encoding to use for the metadata in the
archive. The default value is :func:`sys.getfilesystemencoding` or ``'ascii'``
as a fallback. Depending on whether the archive is read or written, the
metadata must be either decoded or encoded. If *encoding* is not set
appropriately, this conversion may fail.

The *errors* argument defines how characters are treated that cannot be
converted. Possible values are listed in section :ref:`error-handlers`.
The default scheme is ``'surrogateescape'`` which Python also uses for its
file system calls, see :ref:`os-filenames`.

In case of :const:`PAX_FORMAT` archives, *encoding* is generally not needed
because all the metadata is stored using *UTF-8*. *encoding* is only used in
the rare cases when binary pax headers are decoded or when strings with
surrogate characters are stored.

:mod:`tarfile` --- Read and write tar archive files

:mod:tarfile --- Read and write tar archive files

TarFile Objects

TarInfo Objects

Command-Line Interface

:mod:`tarfile` --- Read and write tar archive files