Question

I considered using tmpnam to set the output file name of a QPrinter. But the Python documentation recommends against using it.

os.tmpnam()

Return a unique path name that is reasonable for creating a temporary
file. … Applications are responsible
for properly creating and managing
files created using paths returned by
tmpnam(); no automatic cleanup is
provided.

Warning

Use of tmpnam() is vulnerable to symlink attacks; consider using
tmpfile() (section File Object
Creation) instead.

Windows: Microsoft’s
implementation of tmpnam() always
creates a name in the root directory
of the current drive, and that’s
generally a poor location for a temp
file (depending on privileges, you may
not even be able to open a file using
this name).

• Is this really insecure if my application doesn’t need any special privileges?
• What are secure alternatives considering that I can only set a path as the output file name of the QPrinter?

Answer 1

Please read http://docs.python.org/library/tempfile.html

Use that instead.