Reading file from concatinated ( tar ) file directly without untarring the tar file

Hi i am having a one xml file and some image files, i am making my one concatenate file (ie as like tar file) from all these file (i am having my own scripts for tarring and untarring).

before i describe what exactly i want you have to look the current situation.

As of now i have to untar the all files into a directory then i am able to 开发者_C百科read the xml file which is part of the tar file.Then i read the data from xml file and then i am able to draw image mention in xml ( image names are mention in xml attribute value) on corresponding panels.

Now i want when someone click on my tar file, i should able to read the xml file and then i am able to read all the other images ( data) and i can draw on the corresponding panel with extract specifically in to a directory.

Is any method or any help really help me alot. Thanks in advance.

The tarfile module gives you access to tarballs. It won't be random access, but you can read out any files you need and put them in a temporary directory, or just store them in strings.