tempfile.TemporaryDirectory context manager in Python 2.7

Question

Is there a way to create a temporary directory in a context manager with Python 2.7?

with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as temp_dir:
    # modify files in th         


        

Answer 1

Another option is the "backports.tempfile" package on pypi: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/backports.tempfile

Quoting the project's description: "This package provides backports of new features in Python’s tempfile module under the backports namespace."

Install with:

pip install backports.tempfile

Then use it in your script:

from backports import tempfile
with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as temp_dir:
    # modify files in this dir
# here the temporary directory does not exist any more.

Answer 2

tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() was added to the tempfile standard library in Python 3.2

It's a simple wrapper for tempfile.mkdtemp. It is coded in pure Python and can be easily ported to Python 2.7.

For example:

from __future__ import print_function

import warnings as _warnings
import os as _os

from tempfile import mkdtemp

class TemporaryDirectory(object):
    """Create and return a temporary directory.  This has the same
    behavior as mkdtemp but can be used as a context manager.  For
    example:

        with TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdir:
            ...

    Upon exiting the context, the directory and everything contained
    in it are removed.
    """

    def __init__(self, suffix="", prefix="tmp", dir=None):
        self._closed = False
        self.name = None # Handle mkdtemp raising an exception
        self.name = mkdtemp(suffix, prefix, dir)

    def __repr__(self):
        return "<{} {!r}>".format(self.__class__.__name__, self.name)

    def __enter__(self):
        return self.name

    def cleanup(self, _warn=False):
        if self.name and not self._closed:
            try:
                self._rmtree(self.name)
            except (TypeError, AttributeError) as ex:
                # Issue #10188: Emit a warning on stderr
                # if the directory could not be cleaned
                # up due to missing globals
                if "None" not in str(ex):
                    raise
                print("ERROR: {!r} while cleaning up {!r}".format(ex, self,),
                      file=_sys.stderr)
                return
            self._closed = True
            if _warn:
                self._warn("Implicitly cleaning up {!r}".format(self),
                           ResourceWarning)

    def __exit__(self, exc, value, tb):
        self.cleanup()

    def __del__(self):
        # Issue a ResourceWarning if implicit cleanup needed
        self.cleanup(_warn=True)

    # XXX (ncoghlan): The following code attempts to make
    # this class tolerant of the module nulling out process
    # that happens during CPython interpreter shutdown
    # Alas, it doesn't actually manage it. See issue #10188
    _listdir = staticmethod(_os.listdir)
    _path_join = staticmethod(_os.path.join)
    _isdir = staticmethod(_os.path.isdir)
    _islink = staticmethod(_os.path.islink)
    _remove = staticmethod(_os.remove)
    _rmdir = staticmethod(_os.rmdir)
    _warn = _warnings.warn

    def _rmtree(self, path):
        # Essentially a stripped down version of shutil.rmtree.  We can't
        # use globals because they may be None'ed out at shutdown.
        for name in self._listdir(path):
            fullname = self._path_join(path, name)
            try:
                isdir = self._isdir(fullname) and not self._islink(fullname)
            except OSError:
                isdir = False
            if isdir:
                self._rmtree(fullname)
            else:
                try:
                    self._remove(fullname)
                except OSError:
                    pass
        try:
            self._rmdir(path)
        except OSError:
            pass

import os
with TemporaryDirectory() as tmp_dir:
    print("Temporary directory path: %s" % tmp_dir)
    print(os.path.isdir(tmp_dir))

# here the temporary diretory does not exist any more.
print(os.path.isdir(tmp_dir))