Python Temporary Files and Directories

External

• https://docs.python.org/3/library/tempfile.html

Internal

• File Operations in Python

Auto-Deleting Temporary Files and Directories

TemporaryFile, NamedTemporaryFile and TemporaryDirectory are classes that provide temporary files and directories that, in conjunction with the with reserved word, are self-deleting when we the program gets out of scope.

Auto-Deleting Temporary File

The underlying file system file will be deleted as soon as the TemporaryFile object is closed.

Temporary Files and Directories to be Deleted by the Caller

Temporary Directory to be Deleted by the Caller

Create a named temporary file, write in it and return the name. The file is not automatically deleted after close(), the caller will need to delete it:

import tempfile
with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode='w+t', delete=False) as t:
  t.write(something)
  return t.name