Download and untar file

dload_untar.py

#! /usr/bin/env python
    
def download_and_untar(url, **kw):
    import os
    import tarfile
    from io import BytesIO
    try:                from urllib.request import urlopen
    except ImportError: from urllib import urlopen
    # Options
    try:                strip_components = kw['strip_components']
    except KeyError:    strip_components = 0
    # Download the tar file
    tar = tarfile.open(fileobj = BytesIO(urlopen(url).read()))
    members = [m for m in tar.getmembers() if len(m.name.split(os.sep)) > strip_components]
    if strip_components > 0:
        for m in members:                                                                               
            m.name = os.path.join(*(m.name.split(os.sep)[strip_components:]))
    tar.extractall(members = members)
    tar.close()

url = "https://github.com/CxxTest/cxxtest/archive/master.tar.gz"
download_and_untar(url, strip_components = 1)