Terry J. Reedy added the comment: Correct. The doc I quoted was for the unlying mkstemp function. I should have said so even though this fact was easily discovered. So by docstring, I meant the one for mkstemp also, which is currently 27 lines. The docstring for the high level functions should not change. I proposed to shorten the docstring by combining the sentences for prefix and suffix, while adding a bit of info. I decided to withdraw this suggestion and close this issue. ---------- assignee: docs@python -> terry.reedy resolution: -> rejected stage: patch review -> resolved status: open -> closed _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue18730> _______________________________________