tempfile

Allocate temporary files and directories whose paths are unique and which clean themselves up. Used widely by test runners, by build systems, and by code that needs to stage data on disk.

Source-of-record: Lib/tempfile.py, tempfile docs.

High-level

Function / class	Returns
TemporaryFile(mode='w+b', buffering=-1, encoding=None, newline=None, suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None, *, errors=None)	Anonymous file (POSIX) / hidden file (Windows).
NamedTemporaryFile(...)	Same; with a visible .name.
SpooledTemporaryFile(max_size=0, ...)	In-memory until threshold, then disk.
TemporaryDirectory(suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None, ignore_cleanup_errors=False, *, delete=True)	Context manager dir.
mkstemp(suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None, text=False)	(fd, abspath); caller cleans up.
mkdtemp(suffix=None, prefix=None, dir=None)	New directory; caller cleans up.
gettempdir() / gettempdirb()	Default directory (str/bytes).
gettempprefix() / gettempprefixb()	Default prefix.

Defaults and search order

tempfile selects the temp directory in this order: TMPDIR, TEMP, TMP, then /tmp, /var/tmp, /usr/tmp on POSIX or C:\\TEMP, C:\\TMP, \\TEMP, \\TMP on Windows.

tempfile.tempdir = path overrides the default for the process.

Cleanup semantics

Class / function	Cleanup
TemporaryFile	Unlinked at open (POSIX) or on close (Windows).
NamedTemporaryFile	Unlinked on close; suppress with delete=False.
SpooledTemporaryFile	As NamedTemporaryFile once rolled.
TemporaryDirectory	Recursive remove on __exit__ / cleanup().
mkstemp / mkdtemp	Caller responsibility.

Gopy status

Area	State
All factories	Complete.
Spooled files	Complete.
TemporaryDirectory with delete=False (3.12+)	Complete.
Atomic name generation	Complete; uses os.urandom.

Reference

• CPython 3.14: tempfile.
• Lib/tempfile.py.
• module/tempfile/. gopy port.