Bugs item #922922, was opened at 2004-03-25 06:06 Message generated for change (Comment added) made by otterley You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=105470&aid=922922&group_id=5470

Category: Python Library Group: Python 2.3

Resolution: None Priority: 5 Submitted By: Michael S. Fischer (otterley) Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody) Summary: tempfile.mkstemp() documentation discrepancy

Initial Comment: The documentation for tempfile.mkstemp() at http://www.python.org/doc/2.3.3/lib/module- tempfile.html (as well as the ActivePython documentation that ships with the Windows 2.3 build) says:

"mkstemp() returns a tuple containing an OS-level handle to an open file (as would be returned by os.open ()) and the absolute pathname of that file, in that order."

However, whenever I use it, it returns a tuple containing an integer (presumably the file descriptor) and the absolute pathname of the tempfile. No file handle is returned.

Sure enough, the in-line documentation states:

"The return value is a pair (fd, name) where fd is the file descriptor returned by os.open, and name is the filename."

Could someone please correct this discrepancy?

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Date: 2004-03-27 02:32

Message: Logged In: YES user_id=7820

The documentation could be a bit clearer. When I think of a file descriptor in python, I think of a file-like object, i.e. that which is returned by open(), as opposed to os.open().

It's unclear to me why mkstemp() returns an os-level file descriptor as opposed to a Python file-like object, but I suppose that's beside the point.

I'll close the bug, though, because the documentation is literally correct, and the team has more urgent priorities.

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Comment By: Nick Bastin (mondragon) Date: 2004-03-26 18:47

Message: Logged In: YES user_id=430343

As noted in the os.open() documentation, it returns a file descriptor, which seems to make the mkstemp() documentation perfectly reasonable (and correct).

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