Issue 922922: tempfile.mkstemp() documentation discrepancy (original) (raw)

Issue922922

Created on 2004-03-25 06:06 by otterley, last changed 2022-04-11 14:56 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Messages (3)
msg20308 - (view)	Author: Michael S. Fischer (otterley)	Date: 2004-03-25 06:06
The documentation for tempfile.mkstemp() at http://www.python.org/doc/2.3.3/lib/module- tempfile.html (as well as the ActivePython documentation that ships with the Windows 2.3 build) says: "mkstemp() returns a tuple containing an OS-level handle to an open file (as would be returned by os.open ()) and the absolute pathname of that file, in that order." However, whenever I use it, it returns a tuple containing an integer (presumably the file descriptor) and the absolute pathname of the tempfile. No file handle is returned. Sure enough, the in-line documentation states: "The return value is a pair (fd, name) where fd is the file descriptor returned by os.open, and name is the filename." Could someone please correct this discrepancy?
msg20309 - (view)	Author: Nick Bastin (nbastin) *	Date: 2004-03-26 18:47
Logged In: YES user_id=430343 As noted in the os.open() documentation, it returns a file descriptor, which seems to make the mkstemp() documentation perfectly reasonable (and correct).
msg20310 - (view)	Author: Michael S. Fischer (otterley)	Date: 2004-03-27 02:32
Logged In: YES user_id=7820 The documentation could be a bit clearer. When I think of a file descriptor in python, I think of a file-like object, i.e. that which is returned by open(), as opposed to os.open(). It's unclear to me why mkstemp() returns an os-level file descriptor as opposed to a Python file-like object, but I suppose that's beside the point. I'll close the bug, though, because the documentation is literally correct, and the team has more urgent priorities.