# Read a .vtk file inside a .tar archive without extracting the files

**URL:** https://discourse.vtk.org/t/read-a-vtk-file-inside-a-tar-archive-without-extracting-the-files/2554
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 5, 2020, 6:20pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/read-a-vtk-file-inside-a-tar-archive-without-extracting-the-files/2554 "2020-02-05T18:20:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![DFlyer](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/dflyer/32/1598_2.png) [@DFlyer](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/DFlyer)
#### Post date: [February 5, 2020, 6:20pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/read-a-vtk-file-inside-a-tar-archive-without-extracting-the-files/2554/1 "2020-02-05T18:20:12Z")

</div>

Hello,

I need to read a .vtk file and I do it by

```
reader = vtk.vtkStructuredPointsReader() 
reader.SetFileName(file)

```

My files are mostly inside a .tar archive, along with vtk file there are lot other files inside. I can read the vtk file without extracting using [read()](https://docs.python.org/3/library/io.html#io.BufferedReader.read)  
Now with this how can I set the data to VTK reader?

It is my findings until now, if there is an alternate way to read .vtk from .tar archive without extracting would also be great.

Thanks  
Vishnu C