The tarfile module makes it possible to read and create tar archives. Some facts and figures:
| [name[, mode [, fileobj[, bufsize]]]]) | 
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' | 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. | 
| 'a' or 'a:' | Open for appending with no compression. | 
| 'w' or 'w:' | Open for uncompressed writing. | 
| 'w:gz' | Open for gzip compressed writing. | 
| 'w:bz2' | Open for bzip2 compressed writing. | 
Note that 'a:gz' or 'a:bz2' is not possible.
    If mode is not suitable to open a certain (compressed) file for
    reading, ReadError is raised. Use mode 'r' to
    avoid this.  If a compression method is not supported,
    CompressionError is raised.
If fileobj is specified, it is used as an alternative to a file object opened for name.
For special purposes, there is a second format for mode:
    'filemode|[compression]'.  open() will return a
    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 read() or
    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 file object or a tape device.
    However, such a TarFile object is limited in that it does
    not allow to be accessed randomly, see ``Examples''
    (section 7.19.3).  The currently possible modes:
| Mode | Action | 
|---|---|
| '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. | 
| 'w|' | Open an uncompressed stream for writing. | 
| 'w|gz' | Open an gzip compressed stream for writing. | 
| 'w|bz2' | Open an bzip2 compressed stream for writing. | 
| name) | 
| filename[, mode[, compression]]) | 
 == 2.
See Also: