On Tue, Sep 4, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Cameron Simpson <c...@cskk.id.au> wrote: > > The downside with mkdir, and also with pd files really, is that a program or > OS abort can leave them lying around. Being persistent objects, some kind of > cleanup is needed.
While the OP needs a cross-platform solution, if it's just Windows, the cleanup problem for a temporary directory or lock file can be handled via the delete-on-close flag. This includes the case in which the process is forcefully terminated. However, it won't help if the system itself crashes or gets powered off abruptly. Details for a directory: *NT API* Call NtCreateFile with DELETE access, FILE_CREATE disposition, and the options FILE_DIRECTORY_FILE | FILE_DELETE_ON_CLOSE. *Windows API (undocumented)* Call CreateFile with CREATE_NEW disposition and the attributes/flags FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY | FILE_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS | FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS | FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE. *Windows API (documented)* Call CreateDirectory and then CreateFile with OPEN_EXISTING disposition and the flags FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS | FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE. *C/POSIX API (undocumented)* Call os.mkdir and then os.open with the flags O_OBTAIN_DIR (0x2000) and O_TEMPORARY. (O_OBTAIN_DIR requires the Universal CRT, which is used by CPython 3.5+.) -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
