This should read the first line of every file in the logs subdirectory, unzipping as required:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import glob
import gzip
import subprocess
for f in glob.glob('logs/*'):
if f.endswith('.gz'):
# Open a compressed file. Here is the easy way:
# file = gzip.open(f, 'rb')
# Or, here is the hard way:
proc = subprocess.Popen(['zcat', f], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
file = proc.stdout
else:
# Otherwise, it must be a regular file
file = open(f, 'rb')
# Process file, for example:
print f, file.readline()