import threading, zipfile, sys, time

class AsyncZip(threading.Thread):

"""A threading.Thread - derived class for zipping a file asynchronously

infile - file to be zipped

outfile - name of the zipfile

"""

def __init__(self, infile, outfile):

threading.Thread.__init__(self)

self.infile = infile

self.outfile = outfile

def run(self):

print('Start zipping {0}...'.format(self.infile))

zip_file = zipfile.ZipFile(self.outfile, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)

zip_file.write(self.infile)

# time.sleep(5) # sleep 5 secs so it doesn't finish earlier than control is given back to main thread.

print('Zipping {0} completed.'.format(self.infile))

asynczip = AsyncZip(*(sys.argv[1:]))

# asynczip.run() it's not run but start(!)

asynczip.start()

print('Main program continues to run, waiting for the zipping thread to complete')

asynczip.join()