[Python-Dev] Warn about mktemp once again? (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Apr 29 01:22:42 CEST 2008


IMO mkstemp() is a major pain because you have to use raw file descriptors on the return value. I'd much rather recommend [Named]TemporaryFile which return streams.

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 4:17 PM, <skip at pobox.com> wrote:

Guido> Have we documented the alternatives well enough? I suppose we could document explicitly how to use mkstemp() in place of mktemp(), but the difference in return value is fairly modest: >>> tempfile.mktemp() '/var/folders/5q/5qTPn6xq2RaWqk+1Ytw3-U+++TI/-Tmp-/tmpV5OLi' >>> tempfile.mkstemp() (3, '/var/folders/5q/5qTPn6xq2RaWqk+1Ytw3-U+++TI/-Tmp-/tmpmS7K4T') and the argument list is quite similar as well: >>> help(tempfile.mktemp) Help on function mktemp in module tempfile: mktemp(suffix='', prefix='tmp', dir=None) ... >>> help(tempfile.mkstemp) Help on function mkstemp in module tempfile: mkstemp(suffix='', prefix='tmp', dir=None, text=False) ... Guido> In most cases NamedTemporaryFile will work, ... It's API seems to be a bit farther from the mktemp API than that of mkstemp. Skip

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)



More information about the Python-Dev mailing list