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Asked: 2026-05-23T06:59:08+00:00

The Python module tempfile contains both NamedTemporaryFile and TemporaryFile . The documentation for the

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The Python module tempfile contains both NamedTemporaryFile and TemporaryFile. The documentation for the former says

Whether the name can be used to open the file a second time, while the named temporary file is still open, varies across platforms (it can be so used on Unix; it cannot on Windows NT or later)

What is the point of the file having a name if I can’t use that name? If I want the useful (for me) behaviour of Unix on Windows, I’ve got to make a copy of the code and rip out all the bits that say if _os.name == 'nt' and the like.

What gives? Surely this is useful for something, since it was deliberately coded this way, but what is that something?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It states that accessing it a second time while it is still open. You can still use the name otherwise, just be sure to pass delete=False when creating the NamedTemporaryFile so that it persists after it is closed.

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