Python copy file to tempfile

Many programs need to create files to write intermediate data. Creating files with unique names securely, so they cannot be guessed by someone wanting to break the application, is challenging. The tempfile module provides several functions for creating filesystem resources securely.

TemporaryFile opens and returns an un-named file, NamedTemporaryFile opens and returns a named file, and mkdtemp creates a temporary directory and returns its name. If your application needs a temporary file to store data, but does not need to share that file with other programs, the best option for creating the file is the TemporaryFile function.

It creates a file, and on platforms where it is possible, unlinks it immediately. This makes it impossible for another program to find or open the file, since there is no reference to it in the filesystem table.

The file created by TemporaryFile is removed automatically when it is closed. This example illustrates the difference in creating a temporary file using a common pattern for making up a name, versus using the TemporaryFile function.

Notice that the file returned by TemporaryFile has no name. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown. The Overflow Blog. Podcast Making Agile work for data science. Stack Gives Back Featured on Meta. New post summary designs on greatest hits now, everywhere else eventually. Linked Related Hot Network Questions. Question feed. Stack Overflow works best with JavaScript enabled. Accept all cookies Customize settings.

TemporaryFile gets destroyed as soon as the file is closed, NamedTemporaryFile has support for the deleted flags, which defaults to True Example Skip to content. Change Language. Related Articles. Table of Contents.

Improve Article. Save Article. Like Article. Attention geek! There may be a need to store temporary data from an application point of view, so these files can prove to be very useful! Python provides us with the tempfile module, which gives us an easy to use interface. This module is a part of the standard library Python 3. You can simply import it! The tempfile module gives us the TemporaryFile method, which will create a temporary file.