How to create a temporary directory and get its path/ file name?

How can I create a temporary directory and get its path/file name in Python?

6 Answers

Use the mkdtemp() function from the tempfile module:

import tempfile import shutil dirpath = tempfile.mkdtemp() # ... do stuff with dirpath shutil.rmtree(dirpath) 

In Python 3, TemporaryDirectory from the tempfile module can be used.

From the examples:

import tempfile with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdirname: print('created temporary directory', tmpdirname) # directory and contents have been removed 

To manually control when the directory is removed, don't use a context manager, as in the following example:

import tempfile temp_dir = tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() print(temp_dir.name) # use temp_dir, and when done: temp_dir.cleanup() 

The documentation also says:

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.

At the end of the program, for example, Python will clean up the directory if it wasn't removed, e.g. by the context manager or the cleanup() method. Python's unittest may complain of ResourceWarning: Implicitly cleaning up <TemporaryDirectory... if you rely on this, though.

To expand on another answer, here is a fairly complete example which can cleanup the tmpdir even on exceptions:

import contextlib import os import shutil import tempfile @contextlib.contextmanager def cd(newdir, cleanup=lambda: True): prevdir = os.getcwd() os.chdir(os.path.expanduser(newdir)) try: yield finally: os.chdir(prevdir) cleanup() @contextlib.contextmanager def tempdir(): dirpath = tempfile.mkdtemp() def cleanup(): shutil.rmtree(dirpath) with cd(dirpath, cleanup): yield dirpath def main(): with tempdir() as dirpath: pass # do something here 

In python 3.2 and later, there is a useful contextmanager for this in the stdlib

If I get your question correctly, you want to also know the names of the files generated inside the temporary directory? If so, try this:

import os import tempfile with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmp_dir: # generate some random files in it files_in_dir = os.listdir(tmp_dir) 

Docs.python.org TemporaryDirectory example using a context manager

import tempfile # create a temporary directory using the context manager with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdirname: print('created temporary directory', tmpdirname) # directory and contents have been removed 

Using pathlib to facilitate path manipulation on top of tempfile makes it possible to create new paths using the / path operator of pathlib:

import tempfile from pathlib import Path with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdirname: temp_dir = Path(tmpdirname) print(temp_dir, temp_dir.exists()) file_name = temp_dir / "test.txt" file_name.write_text("bla bla bla") print(file_name, "contains", file_name.open().read()) # /tmp/tmp81iox6s2 True # /tmp/tmp81iox6s2/test.txt contains bla bla bla 

Outside the context manager, files have been destroyed

print(temp_dir, temp_dir.exists()) # /tmp/tmp81iox6s2 False print(file_name, file_name.exists()) # /tmp/tmp81iox6s2/test.txt False