A script to pack any file with zlib and embed them as C/C++ header file.

zxd.py

# A script to pack any file with zlib and embed them as C/C++ header file.
# Should work well with all Python versions starting from Python 3.6
# Basically you can achieve pretty much the same effect as this script with gzip | xxd wrapping on most of Unix systems.

import argparse
import os
from pathlib import Path
import re
import zlib

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
    prog='zxd.py',
    description='Pack any file with zlib and produce a C header')
parser.add_argument('input_file', type=Path)
parser.add_argument('-v', '--var', type=str, help='specify name of byte array variable (the derivative from input file name will be used otherwise)')
args = parser.parse_args()

########################################
# Load and compress.

file = open(args.input_file, "rb")
filebytes = bytearray(file.read())
compressed = zlib.compress(filebytes)

########################################
# Generate header file.

var_raw_name = args.var or args.input_file.name
# Sanitize variable name: only alphanumeric symbols are allowed to stay.
var_name = re.sub(r"[^a-z0-9]", "_", var_raw_name.lower())
print(f"unsigned char {var_name}[] = {{", end="")

# Pretty print hexadecimal sequence of bytes.
BYTES_PER_LINE = 16
cnt = 0
for b in compressed:
    if cnt % BYTES_PER_LINE == 0:
        print("\n    ", end="")
    end = ", "
    if cnt == len(compressed) - 1:
        end = "\n};\n"
    print(f"0x{b:02x}", end=end)
    cnt += 1

print(f"unsigned int {var_name}_len = {len(compressed)};")
# Just for the information.
print(f"// uncompressed len = {len(filebytes)}")