A quick example of reading gzip archives into memory FROM a tar archive (mind blown!)

in_memory_tar_extract.py

import sys
import tarfile

input_tar = sys.argv[1]

# If input tar is not found, do not proceed
if not os.path.exists(input_tar):
    print('Cannot find %s!' % input_tar)
    sys.exit(1)

tar = tarfile.open(input_tar, 'r')
for member in tar:

   # Are we dealing with a file?
   if member.isfile():

       # Is it a gzip archive?
       if member.name.endswith('.tar.gz'):

           print("Wouhou! Extracting %s" % member.name)
           subtar = tarfile.open(mode='r|gz', fileobj=tar.extractfile(member))
           
           # Now we can find papers (.tex LaTex files) inside
           for submember in subtar:
               if submember.name.endswith('.tex'):    
                   print("Found LaTeX file %s!" % submember.name)

                   # We extract the submember from it's parent subtar
                   with subtar.extractfile(submember) as m:
                       tex = m.read()
                   
                   # Do something with your tex!