pycabfile

A Python library for handling Microsoft Cabinet files with zipfile-compatible interface

Python 3.10+ Compatible - This library provides a zipfile-like interface for creating and extracting CAB files, fully compatible with Python 3.10 and later versions.

Features

• zipfile-compatible interface - Use the same methods as Python's zipfile module
• Create and extract CAB files with simple API
• Support for binary and text files
• Unicode filename support
• Context manager support (with statement)
• No external dependencies required
• Python 3.10+ support - Fully compatible with modern Python versions

Installation

pip install pycabfile

# or Install from source
pip install git+https://github.com/hanul93/pycabfile.git

Quick Start

The interface is designed to be identical to Python's zipfile module:

Creating CAB Files

from pycabfile import CabFile

# Create a new CAB file
with CabFile('example.cab', 'w') as cab:
    # Add files from disk
    cab.write('document.txt', 'docs/document.txt')  # arcname is optional
    cab.write('image.jpg')

    # Add data directly
    cab.writestr('readme.txt', 'This is a README file')
    cab.writestr('config.json', '{"version": "1.0"}')

Reading CAB Files

from pycabfile import CabFile

# Read an existing CAB file
with CabFile('example.cab', 'r') as cab:
    # List all files
    file_list = cab.namelist()
    print(f"Files in CAB: {file_list}")

    # Read file content
    content = cab.read('readme.txt')
    print(content.decode('utf-8'))

    # Get file information
    info = cab.getinfo('document.txt')
    print(f"File size: {info.file_size} bytes")

    # Extract files
    cab.extract('document.txt', 'output/')  # Extract single file
    cab.extractall('output/')  # Extract all files

Advanced Usage

from pycabfile import CabFile, CabInfo

# Append to existing CAB file
with CabFile('example.cab', 'a') as cab:
    cab.writestr('appended.txt', 'This was added later')

# Working with file-like objects
with CabFile('example.cab', 'r') as cab:
    with cab.open('document.txt') as f:
        data = f.read()
        print(data.decode('utf-8'))

Comparison with zipfile

The API is designed to be a drop-in replacement for zipfile in most cases:

zipfile	pycabfile
zipfile.ZipFile('file.zip', 'w')	pycabfile.CabFile('file.cab', 'w')
zf.write('file.txt')	cf.write('file.txt')
zf.writestr('name', data)	cf.writestr('name', data)
zf.read('name')	cf.read('name')
zf.namelist()	cf.namelist()
zf.extractall()	cf.extractall()

Testing

Run the test suite:

# Basic functionality test
python test_pycabfile.py

# Run example demo
python example.py

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• No external dependencies required

Authors

• Kei Choi (developer)

License

MIT License

Technical Details

This library provides a pure Python implementation for handling Microsoft Cabinet files with a zipfile-compatible interface. It implements the CAB format specification from Microsoft to ensure full compatibility with standard CAB files created by other tools.

CAB Format Information

For more information about the Microsoft Cabinet format: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb417343.aspx