Limitations of TEMP directory in Windows?

Question

I have an application written in Python that\'s writing large amounts of data to the %TEMP% folder. Oddly, every once and awhile, it dies, returning IOEr

Answer 1

What is the exact error you encounter?

Are you creating too many temp files?

The GetTempFileName method will raise an IOException if it is used to create more than 65535 files without deleting previous temporary files.

The GetTempFileName method will raise an IOException if no unique temporary file name is available. To resolve this error, delete all unneeded temporary files.

One thing to note is that if you're indirectly using the Win32 API, and you're only using it to get temp file names, note that while (indirectly) calling it:

Creates a uniquely named, zero-byte temporary file on disk and returns the full path of that file.

If you're using that path but also changing the value returned, be aware you might actually be creating a 0byte file and an additional file on top of that (e.g. My_App_tmpXXXX.tmp and tmpXXXX.tmp).

As Nestor suggested below, consider deleting your temp files after you're done using them.