Zipping Shapefiles with Python

My previous employer liked using GIS Pro to collect GIS field data on iPads. My employer wanted to equip surveyors with a variety of GIS information to be used in the field - parcels, political boundaries, company assets, and others. To do so, we first had to create shapefiles and add them to zip files for our data to be compatible with GIS Pro. All this information required geoprocessing to make sure the right data was added to each surveyor's iPad without bogging down GIS Pro's software with a crippling overabundance of data. Once that processing was complete I needed to create a function that would get my shapefiles zipped up nicely and ready for upload. To start, I hunted down all the possible shapefile file extensions. With use of Python's zipfile module I developed my function to add all shapefile files to a new zipfile that inherits its file name from the shapefile. I also added the option to keep or delete the shapefile from its directory after zipping by setting the Boolean Delete variable to either True or False.

The code:

import os
import zipfile
import arcpy

def ZipShp (inShp, Delete = True):

    """
    Creates a zip file containing the input shapefile
    inputs -
    inShp: Full path to shapefile to be zipped
    Delete: Set to True to delete shapefile files after zip
    """
    
    #List of shapefile file extensions
    extensions = [".shp",
                  ".shx",
                  ".dbf",
                  ".sbn",
                  ".sbx",
                  ".fbn",
                  ".fbx",
                  ".ain",
                  ".aih",
                  ".atx",
                  ".ixs",
                  ".mxs",
                  ".prj",
                  ".xml",
                  ".cpg"]

    #Directory of shapefile
    inLocation = arcpy.Describe (inShp).path
    #Base name of shapefile
    inName = arcpy.Describe (inShp).baseName
    #Create zipfile name
    zipfl = os.path.join (inLocation, inName + ".zip")
    #Create zipfile object
    ZIP = zipfile.ZipFile (zipfl, "w")
    
    #Iterate files in shapefile directory
    for fl in os.listdir (inLocation):
        #Iterate extensions
        for extension in extensions:
            #Check if file is shapefile file
            if fl == inName + extension:
                #Get full path of file
                inFile = os.path.join (inLocation, fl)
                #Add file to zipfile
                ZIP.write (inFile, fl)
                break

    #Delete shapefile if indicated
    if Delete == True:
        arcpy.Delete_management (inShp)

    #Close zipfile object
    ZIP.close()

    #Return zipfile full path
    return zipfl

And for those of you without the ArcPy module:

import os
import zipfile

def ZipShp (inShp, Delete = True):

    """
    Creates a zip file containing the input shapefile
    inputs -
    inShp: Full path to shapefile to be zipped
    Delete: Set to True to delete shapefile files after zip
    """
    
    #List of shapefile file extensions
    extensions = [".shp",
                  ".shx",
                  ".dbf",
                  ".sbn",
                  ".sbx",
                  ".fbn",
                  ".fbx",
                  ".ain",
                  ".aih",
                  ".atx",
                  ".ixs",
                  ".mxs",
                  ".prj",
                  ".xml",
                  ".cpg",
                  ".shp.xml"]

    #Directory of shapefile
    inLocation = os.path.dirname (inShp)
    #Base name of shapefile
    inName = os.path.basename (os.path.splitext (inShp)[0])
    #Create zipfile name
    zipfl = os.path.join (inLocation, inName + ".zip")
    #Create zipfile object
    ZIP = zipfile.ZipFile (zipfl, "w")

    #Empty list to store files to delete
    delFiles = []
    
    #Iterate files in shapefile directory
    for fl in os.listdir (inLocation):
        #Iterate extensions
        for extension in extensions:
            #Check if file is shapefile file
            if fl == inName + extension:
                #Get full path of file
                inFile = os.path.join (inLocation, fl)
                #Add file to delete files list
                delFiles += [inFile]
                #Add file to zipfile
                ZIP.write (inFile, fl)
                break

    #Delete shapefile if indicated
    if Delete == True:
        for fl in delFiles:
            os.remove (fl)

    #Close zipfile object
    ZIP.close()

    #Return zipfile full path
    return zipfl