A simple snippet to zip files in a directory and send it the browser in downloadable format in django

python django create and download zip

from shutil import make_archive
from django.core.servers.basehttp import FileWrapper
def download(request,file_name=""):
    """
    A django view to zip files in directory and send it as downloadable response to the browser.
    Args:
      @request: Django request object
      @file_name: Name of the directory to be zipped
    Returns:
      A downloadable Http response
    """
    file_path = "/tmp/albums/"+file_name
    path_to_zip = make_archive(file_path,"zip",file_path)
    response = HttpResponse(FileWrapper(file(path_to_zip,'rb')), content_type='application/zip')
    response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename='+file_name.replace(" ","_")+'.zip'
    return response

@rafaelcapucho file is a included python function: https://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#file