Untaring vs. using shutil.unpack_archive

tar_vs_shutil.py

import os
import shutil
import pathlib
import tempfile
import functools
import subprocess
import contextlib
import urllib.request


@contextlib.contextmanager
def chdir(new_path):
    """
    Context manager to change directroy
    """
    old_path = os.getcwd()
    os.chdir(new_path)
    try:
        yield
    finally:
        os.chdir(old_path)


URL = "https://nodejs.org/dist/v14.2.0/node-v14.2.0-linux-x64.tar.xz"

with contextlib.ExitStack() as stack:
    response = stack.enter_context(urllib.request.urlopen(URL))
    tarfileobj = stack.enter_context(
        tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix=".tar.xz", delete=False)
    )
    stack.callback(functools.partial(os.unlink, tarfileobj.name))
    unpackdir = stack.enter_context(tempfile.TemporaryDirectory())
    subtardir = stack.enter_context(tempfile.TemporaryDirectory())

    tarfileobj.write(response.read())
    tarfileobj.close()

    with chdir(unpackdir):
        shutil.unpack_archive(tarfileobj.name, ".")

    with chdir(subtardir):
        subprocess.call(["tar", "xJf", tarfileobj.name])

    print("shutil.unpack_archive", len(list(pathlib.Path(unpackdir).rglob("*"))))
    print("tar xJf", len(list(pathlib.Path(subtardir).rglob("*"))))