Docker python client API copy

Question

I am using Docker python client API 'copy'. Response from copy is of type requests.packages.urllib3.HTTPResponse

Does it need to be handled differently for different types of file?

I copied a text file from container but when I try to read it using response.read() I am getting text data mixed with binary data. I see content decoders as

>>>resonse.CONTENT_DECODERS
>>>['gzip', 'deflate']

What is the best way to handle/read/dump the response from copy API ?

Answer 1

The response from the docker API is an uncompressed tar file. I had to read docker's source code to know the format of the response, as this is not documented. For instance, to download a file at remote_path, you need to do the following:

import tarfile, StringIO, os
reply = docker.copy(container, remote_path)
filelike = StringIO.StringIO(reply.read())
tar = tarfile.open(fileobj = filelike)
file = tar.extractfile(os.path.basename(remote_path))
print file.read()

The code should be modified to work on folders.

Answer 2

Here my python 3 version with docker API 1.38, the copy API seems to be replaced by get_archive.

archive, stat = client.get_archive(path)
filelike = io.BytesIO(b"".join(b for b in archive))
tar = tarfile.open(fileobj=filelike)
fd = tar.extractfile(stat['name'])