is it possible to unzip a .apk file(or generally any zipped file) into memory instead of writing it to fs

Question

I am doing research with mobile apps and need to analyze their code after unzipping the .apk file. However, the process of unzipping naturally involves lots of IO, which doesn't make it scalable, I am thinking if it's possible to hold the unzipped data in memory, with several variables representing it, thus saving the trouble of writing to FS. I am loaded with thousands of apps to analyze, so being able to do something like this would significantly speed up my process. Is there anyone who can suggest a way out for me. I am using python. Thanks in advance

Solution

Hope you are using Linux:

$ cd /dev/shm
$ unzip /path/to/my.apk

that's it. Unzipped APK in memory.

Comments

[Daniel]

that seems to be a quick way to work around this issue. Thanks! I did a quick google and find that, /dev/shm, /tmp, /var/tmp /run can all serve as temporary memory storage. But I am not quite sure how they differ from each other, and in my case which one should I use. specifically /tmp and /var/tmp is mounted on filesystem /dev/sda6, /run is on tmpfs, and /dev/shm is on none. what's the different among them, and how are they related to memory when they are literally mounted on a device in the case of /tmp and /var/tmp

[Diego Torres Milano]

Check the filesystem type, if tmpfs it is in memory

[Daniel]

how about /tmp and /var/tmp, on my computer it's /dev/sda6

[Daniel]

df /tmp Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda6 191425164 50784288 130910368 28% / xushunyi@xushunyi-Lenovo-G450:/dev$ df /var/tmp