just read the tempfile.py source and saw the reason behind this:

tempfile.mktemp says

while ...
    if not os.path.exists(filename):
    	return filename

the app says

fname = tempfile.mktemp() fp = open(fname, "a+")

which doesn't exactly test whether the path exists and simultaneously create a file ;)

perhaps a better warning should be added to mktemp docs?

scott

On Tue, Oct 13, 1998 at 08:27:28PM -0400, Scott wrote: | | the docs to tempfile state that: | | 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(). | | So I have a unix process (part of mailman) that forks, and can fork | quite a bit, the parent process *never* calls mktemp, but the child | processes all do, and i have darn good evidence of generation of | duplicate file names by mktemp() under these circumstances. | | i suggest that we either fix the docs to mktemp to include this | circumstance as an exception or make mktemp() not generate duplicates | under these circumstances. | | scott | | | | | |