import threading, zipfile

class AsyncZip(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, infile, outfile):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)        
        self.infile = infile
        self.outfile = outfile
    def run(self):
        f = zipfile.ZipFile(self.outfile, 'w',
                            zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
        f.write(self.infile)
        f.close()
        print 'Finished background zip of: ', self.infile

background = AsyncZip('mydata.txt', 'myarchive.zip')
background.start()
print 'The main program continues to run in foreground.'

background.join()    # Wait for background task to finish
print 'Main program waited until background was done.'