This module generates temporary file names. It is not Unix specific, but it may require some help on non-Unix systems.
Note: the modules does not create temporary files, nor does it automatically remove them when the current process exits or dies.
The module defines a single user-callable function:
The module uses two global variables that tell it how to construct a temporary name. The caller may assign values to them; by default they are initialized at the first call to mktemp().
None
, this variable defines the
directory in which filenames returned by mktemp() reside.
The default is taken from the environment variable $TMPDIR; if
this is not set, either /usr/tmp is used (on Unix), or the
current working directory (all other systems). No check is made to
see whether its value is valid.
None
, this variable defines the
prefix of the final component of the filenames returned by
mktemp(). A string of decimal digits is added to generate
unique filenames. The default is either @pid. where
pid is the current process ID (on Unix), or tmp (all
other systems).
Warning: if a Unix process uses mktemp()
, then
calls fork() and both parent and child continue to use
mktemp(), the processes will generate conflicting temporary
names. To resolve this, the child process should assign None
to
template
, to force recomputing the default on the next call
to mktemp().