tempfile
--- Generate temporary files and directories¶
Source code: Lib/tempfile.py
This module creates temporary files and directories. It works on all
supported platforms. TemporaryFile
, NamedTemporaryFile
,
TemporaryDirectory
, and SpooledTemporaryFile
are high-level
interfaces which provide automatic cleanup and can be used as
context managers. mkstemp()
and
mkdtemp()
are lower-level functions which require manual cleanup.
All the user-callable functions and constructors take additional arguments which allow direct control over the location and name of temporary files and directories. Files names used by this module include a string of random characters which allows those files to be securely created in shared temporary directories. To maintain backward compatibility, the argument order is somewhat odd; it is recommended to use keyword arguments for clarity.
The module defines the following user-callable items:
-
tempfile.
TemporaryFile
(mode='w+b', buffering=None, encoding=None, newline=None, suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None)¶ Return a file-like object that can be used as a temporary storage area. The file is created securely, using the same rules as
mkstemp()
. It will be destroyed as soon as it is closed (including an implicit close when the object is garbage collected). Under Unix, the directory entry for the file is either not created at all or is removed immediately after the file is created. Other platforms do not support this; your code should not rely on a temporary file created using this function having or not having a visible name in the file system.The resulting object can be used as a context manager (see Examples). On completion of the context or destruction of the file object the temporary file will be removed from the filesystem.
The mode parameter defaults to
'w+b'
so that the file created can be read and written without being closed. Binary mode is used so that it behaves consistently on all platforms without regard for the data that is stored. buffering, encoding and newline are interpreted as foropen()
.The dir, prefix and suffix parameters have the same meaning and defaults as with
mkstemp()
.The returned object is a true file object on POSIX platforms. On other platforms, it is a file-like object whose
file
attribute is the underlying true file object.The
os.O_TMPFILE
flag is used if it is available and works (Linux-specific, requires Linux kernel 3.11 or later).3.5 版更變: The
os.O_TMPFILE
flag is now used if available.
-
tempfile.
NamedTemporaryFile
(mode='w+b', buffering=None, encoding=None, newline=None, suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None, delete=True)¶ This function operates exactly as
TemporaryFile()
does, except that the file is guaranteed to have a visible name in the file system (on Unix, the directory entry is not unlinked). That name can be retrieved from thename
attribute of the returned file-like object. Whether the name can be used to open the file a second time, while the named temporary file is still open, varies across platforms (it can be so used on Unix; it cannot on Windows NT or later). If delete is true (the default), the file is deleted as soon as it is closed. The returned object is always a file-like object whosefile
attribute is the underlying true file object. This file-like object can be used in awith
statement, just like a normal file.
-
tempfile.
SpooledTemporaryFile
(max_size=0, mode='w+b', buffering=None, encoding=None, newline=None, suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None)¶ This function operates exactly as
TemporaryFile()
does, except that data is spooled in memory until the file size exceeds max_size, or until the file'sfileno()
method is called, at which point the contents are written to disk and operation proceeds as withTemporaryFile()
.The resulting file has one additional method,
rollover()
, which causes the file to roll over to an on-disk file regardless of its size.The returned object is a file-like object whose
_file
attribute is either anio.BytesIO
orio.TextIOWrapper
object (depending on whether binary or text mode was specified) or a true file object, depending on whetherrollover()
has been called. This file-like object can be used in awith
statement, just like a normal file.3.3 版更變: the truncate method now accepts a
size
argument.
-
tempfile.
TemporaryDirectory
(suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None)¶ This function securely creates a temporary directory using the same rules as
mkdtemp()
. The resulting object can be used as a context manager (see Examples). On completion of the context or destruction of the temporary directory object the newly created temporary directory and all its contents are removed from the filesystem.The directory name can be retrieved from the
name
attribute of the returned object. When the returned object is used as a context manager, thename
will be assigned to the target of theas
clause in thewith
statement, if there is one.The directory can be explicitly cleaned up by calling the
cleanup()
method.3.2 版新加入.
-
tempfile.
mkstemp
(suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None, text=False)¶ Creates a temporary file in the most secure manner possible. There are no race conditions in the file's creation, assuming that the platform properly implements the
os.O_EXCL
flag foros.open()
. The file is readable and writable only by the creating user ID. If the platform uses permission bits to indicate whether a file is executable, the file is executable by no one. The file descriptor is not inherited by child processes.Unlike
TemporaryFile()
, the user ofmkstemp()
is responsible for deleting the temporary file when done with it.If suffix is not
None
, the file name will end with that suffix, otherwise there will be no suffix.mkstemp()
does not put a dot between the file name and the suffix; if you need one, put it at the beginning of suffix.If prefix is not
None
, the file name will begin with that prefix; otherwise, a default prefix is used. The default is the return value ofgettempprefix()
orgettempprefixb()
, as appropriate.If dir is not
None
, the file will be created in that directory; otherwise, a default directory is used. The default directory is chosen from a platform-dependent list, but the user of the application can control the directory location by setting the TMPDIR, TEMP or TMP environment variables. There is thus no guarantee that the generated filename will have any nice properties, such as not requiring quoting when passed to external commands viaos.popen()
.If any of suffix, prefix, and dir are not
None
, they must be the same type. If they are bytes, the returned name will be bytes instead of str. If you want to force a bytes return value with otherwise default behavior, passsuffix=b''
.If text is specified, it indicates whether to open the file in binary mode (the default) or text mode. On some platforms, this makes no difference.
mkstemp()
returns a tuple containing an OS-level handle to an open file (as would be returned byos.open()
) and the absolute pathname of that file, in that order.3.5 版更變: suffix, prefix, and dir may now be supplied in bytes in order to obtain a bytes return value. Prior to this, only str was allowed. suffix and prefix now accept and default to
None
to cause an appropriate default value to be used.3.6 版更變: The dir parameter now accepts a path-like object.
-
tempfile.
mkdtemp
(suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None)¶ Creates a temporary directory in the most secure manner possible. There are no race conditions in the directory's creation. The directory is readable, writable, and searchable only by the creating user ID.
The user of
mkdtemp()
is responsible for deleting the temporary directory and its contents when done with it.The prefix, suffix, and dir arguments are the same as for
mkstemp()
.mkdtemp()
returns the absolute pathname of the new directory.3.5 版更變: suffix, prefix, and dir may now be supplied in bytes in order to obtain a bytes return value. Prior to this, only str was allowed. suffix and prefix now accept and default to
None
to cause an appropriate default value to be used.3.6 版更變: The dir parameter now accepts a path-like object.
-
tempfile.
gettempdir
()¶ Return the name of the directory used for temporary files. This defines the default value for the dir argument to all functions in this module.
Python searches a standard list of directories to find one which the calling user can create files in. The list is:
The directory named by the
TMPDIR
environment variable.The directory named by the
TEMP
environment variable.The directory named by the
TMP
environment variable.A platform-specific location:
On Windows, the directories
C:\TEMP
,C:\TMP
,\TEMP
, and\TMP
, in that order.On all other platforms, the directories
/tmp
,/var/tmp
, and/usr/tmp
, in that order.
As a last resort, the current working directory.
The result of this search is cached, see the description of
tempdir
below.
-
tempfile.
gettempdirb
()¶ Same as
gettempdir()
but the return value is in bytes.3.5 版新加入.
-
tempfile.
gettempprefix
()¶ Return the filename prefix used to create temporary files. This does not contain the directory component.
-
tempfile.
gettempprefixb
()¶ Same as
gettempprefix()
but the return value is in bytes.3.5 版新加入.
The module uses a global variable to store the name of the directory
used for temporary files returned by gettempdir()
. It can be
set directly to override the selection process, but this is discouraged.
All functions in this module take a dir argument which can be used
to specify the directory and this is the recommended approach.
-
tempfile.
tempdir
¶ When set to a value other than
None
, this variable defines the default value for the dir argument to the functions defined in this module.If
tempdir
isNone
(the default) at any call to any of the above functions exceptgettempprefix()
it is initialized following the algorithm described ingettempdir()
.
Examples¶
Here are some examples of typical usage of the tempfile
module:
>>> import tempfile
# create a temporary file and write some data to it
>>> fp = tempfile.TemporaryFile()
>>> fp.write(b'Hello world!')
# read data from file
>>> fp.seek(0)
>>> fp.read()
b'Hello world!'
# close the file, it will be removed
>>> fp.close()
# create a temporary file using a context manager
>>> with tempfile.TemporaryFile() as fp:
... fp.write(b'Hello world!')
... fp.seek(0)
... fp.read()
b'Hello world!'
>>>
# file is now closed and removed
# create a temporary directory using the context manager
>>> with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdirname:
... print('created temporary directory', tmpdirname)
>>>
# directory and contents have been removed
Deprecated functions and variables¶
A historical way to create temporary files was to first generate a
file name with the mktemp()
function and then create a file
using this name. Unfortunately this is not secure, because a different
process may create a file with this name in the time between the call
to mktemp()
and the subsequent attempt to create the file by the
first process. The solution is to combine the two steps and create the
file immediately. This approach is used by mkstemp()
and the
other functions described above.
-
tempfile.
mktemp
(suffix='', prefix='tmp', dir=None)¶ 2.3 版後已棄用: Use
mkstemp()
instead.Return an absolute pathname of a file that did not exist at the time the call is made. The prefix, suffix, and dir arguments are similar to those of
mkstemp()
, except that bytes file names,suffix=None
andprefix=None
are not supported.警告
Use of this function may introduce a security hole in your program. By the time you get around to doing anything with the file name it returns, someone else may have beaten you to the punch.
mktemp()
usage can be replaced easily withNamedTemporaryFile()
, passing it thedelete=False
parameter:>>> f = NamedTemporaryFile(delete=False) >>> f.name '/tmp/tmptjujjt' >>> f.write(b"Hello World!\n") 13 >>> f.close() >>> os.unlink(f.name) >>> os.path.exists(f.name) False