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In Python 3 on Windows, how can I set NTFS compression on a file? Nothing I've googled has gotten me even close to an answer

(Background: On an NTFS partition, files and/or folders can be set to "compressed", like it's a file attribute. They'll show up in blue in Windows Explorer, and will take up less disk space than they normally would. They can be accessed by any program normally, compression/decompression is handled transparently by the OS - this is not a .zip file. In Windows, setting a file to compressed can be done from a command line with the "Compact" command.)
Let's say I've created a file called "testfile.txt", put some data in it, and closed it. Now, I want to set it to be NTFS compressed. Yes, I could shell out and run Compact, but is there a way to do it directly in Python code instead?

In the end, I ended up cheating a bit and simply shelling out to the command line Compact utility. Here is the function I ended up writing. Errors are ignored, and it returns the output text from the Compact command, if any.
def ntfscompress(filename):
import subprocess
_compactcommand = 'Compact.exe /C /I /A "{}"'.format(filename)
try:
_result = subprocess.run(_compactcommand, timeout=86400,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,text=True)
return(_result.stdout)
except:
return('')

Encrypt folder or zip file using python

So I am trying to encrypt a directory using python and I'm not sure what the best way to do that is. I am easily able to turn the folder into a zip file, but from there I have tried looking up how to encrypt it with AES, but couldn't get that to work and I have also tried encrypting using 7zip to archive the folder, but also couldn't get that to work, so if anybody has another solution to encrypt a directory or could point me in the right direction on how to use one of the previous methods that would be helpful. (I'm on windows if that has any significance)

I still recommend 7-zip.
let's say you want to name the zip folder as myzip.zip
Import subprocess
zp = subprocess.call(['7z', 'a', 'your password', '-y', 'myzip.zip'] + ['your file'])
An alternative way:
Import pyminzip
level=4 #level of compression
pyminizip.compress("your file", "myzip.zip", "your password", level)

Using 7-Zip through the subprocess module works. Here are some issues I encountered and had to resolve:
You need to specify the path to 7zip separate from the cmd variable in the Popen subprocess, and build the command with variables rather than a solid string:
appPath="C:\Program Files\\7-Zip"
zApp="7z.exe"
zAction='a'
zPass='-pPASSWORD'
zAnswer='-y'
zDir=directoryToZip
progDir=os.path.join(appPath,zApp)
cmd = [zApp, zAction, zipFileName, zPass, zAnswer, zDir]
subprocess.Popen(cmd, executable=progDir, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
That will create a zip file (in the location with the name in the zipFileName variable), including the contents (directories and files) inside the "directoryToZip" path
progDir has to be specified for separate from the application you are calling as part of the Open command (this is the executable path), and the command string needed to be built out as variables to deal with the windows backslash escaping setup.

how to use subprocess.check_output() in Python to list any file name as "abc*"

I have couple of file with same name, and I wanted to get the latest file
[root#xxx tmp]# ls -t1 abclog*
abclog.1957
abclog.1830
abclog.1799
abclog.1742
I can accomplish that by executing below command.
[root#xxx tmp]# ls -t1 abclog*| head -n 1
abclog.1957
But when I am trying to execute the same in python , getting error :
subprocess.check_output("ls -t1 abclog* | head -n 1",shell=True)
ls: cannot access abclog*: No such file or directory
''
Seems it does not able to recognize '*' as a special parameter. How can I achieve the same ?

As others noted, your code should work. It doesn't work probably because the current directory isn't the one you suppose it is, so abc* is not expanded by the shell (even if shell=True is set), and passed as-is to ls, resulting in a "no such file" error.
You have to pass the absolute path or use cwd= parameter when calling check_output. Another nice pythonic alternative would be to avoid subprocess, and return the most recently modified file using only python code:
most_recent = max(glob.glob(os.path.join("path/to/file","abclog*"),key=os.path.getmtime)
(using max with os.path.getmtime as key and glob.glob to filter the files)

Make sure you execute this in the directory where the files exist. If you just fire up Idle to run this code, you will not be in that directory.

Applying a perl script to every file in a directory and obtain output using Python

I am trying to make a python script that will open a directory, apply a perl script to every file in that directory and get its out put in either multiple text files or just one.
I currently have:
import shlex, subprocess
arg_str = "perl tilt.pl *.pdb > final.txt"
arg = shlex.split(arg_str)
import os
framespdb = os.listdir("prac_frames")
for frames in framespdb:
subprocess.Popen(arg, stdout=True)
I keep getting *.pdb not found. I am very new to all of this so any help trying to complete this script would help.

*.pdb not found means exactly that - there won't be a *.pdb in whatever directory you're running the script... and as I read the code - I don't see anything to imply it's within 'frames' when it runs the perl script.
you probably need os.chdir(path) before the Popen.
How do I "cd" in Python?
...using a python script to run somewhat dubious syscalls to perl may offend some people but everyone's done it.. aside from that I'd point out:
always specify full paths (this becomes a problem if you will later say, want to run your job automatically from cron or an environment that doesn't have your PATH).
i.e. 'which perl' - put that full path in.
./.pdb would be better but not as good as the fullpath/.pdb (which you could use instead of the os.chdir option).

subprocess.Popen(arg, stdout=True)
does not expand filename wildcards. To handle your *.pdb, use shell=True.

Python: system command

I spend a few hours writing a little script.
Basically what it does is create a new text file and fills it up with whatever.
I zip the text file --using zipfile-- and here's where my problem lies.
I want to run the Windows system command:
copy /b "imgFile.jpg" + "zipFile.zip" newImage.jpg
To merge the image "imgFile.jpg" and the zip "zipFile.zip".
So:
os.system("copy /b \"imgFile.jpg\" + \"zipFile.zip\" newImage.jpg")
When I run my script, it all seems to go fine.
But when it's done and I try to extract the 'newImage.jpg' file, it gives me:
The archive is either in unknown format or damaged
This ONLY happens when I run the system command within the script.
It works fine when I use the shell. It even works if I use a separate script.
I've double checked my zip file. Everything is in good shape.
Is there something I'm doing wrong? Something I'm not seeing?

Have you tried using shutil?
import shutil
shutil.copy(src, dst)

There may be a problem with the way Python is passing the arguments to the shell command. Try using subprocess.call. This method takes arguments as an array and passes them that way to the command:
import subprocess
subprocess.call(["copy", "/b", '"imgFile.jpg" + "zipFile.zip"', "newImage.jpg"])