Temporary Files and Directories

Recipe	Crates	Categories
Create Temporary Files or Temporary Directories

Create Temporary Files or Temporary Directories

tempfile⮳ supports both temporary files and temporary directories.

//! Demonstrates the use of the `tempfile` crate for creating temporary files
//! and directories.

use std::io::Write;

use tempfile::Builder;
use tempfile::tempdir;
use tempfile::tempfile;

fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
    // 1. Create a temporary file (inside of `env::temp_dir()`). It will be
    //    automatically removed by the OS when the last handle to it is closed.
    let mut temp_file = tempfile()?;
    writeln!(temp_file, "This is temporary.")?;

    // The file is automatically deleted when `temp_file` goes out of scope.

    // 2. Create a temporary directory (inside of `env::temp_dir()`).
    let temp_dir = tempdir()?;
    let temp_file_path = temp_dir.path().join("temporary_file");
    let mut temp_file = std::fs::File::create(temp_file_path)?;
    writeln!(temp_file, "This is also temporary.")?;

    // By closing the `TempDir` explicitly, we can check that it has
    // been deleted successfully. If we don't close it explicitly,
    // the directory will still be deleted when `tmp_dir` goes out
    // of scope, but we won't know whether deleting the directory
    // succeeded.
    drop(temp_file);
    temp_dir.close()?;

    // 3. Create a named temporary file Note: NamedTempFile rely on Rust
    //    destructors for cleanup. This means that the file will be deleted when
    //    the variable goes out of scope. They may fail to run if the process
    //    exits through an unhandled signal interrupt.
    let mut temp_file = Builder::new()
        .prefix("my-temporary-file")
        .suffix(".txt")
        .rand_bytes(6)
        .tempfile()?;
    // or simpler: let mut temp_file = tempfile::NamedTempFile::new()?;

    writeln!(temp_file, "Hello, named temporary file!")?;

    // Print the path of the named temporary file.
    println!("Temporary file created at: {:?}", temp_file.path());

    // Read the content back from the named temporary file.
    let mut file = temp_file.reopen()?;
    let mut content = String::new();
    std::io::Read::read_to_string(&mut file, &mut content)?;

    // Print the content of the named temporary file
    println!("Content of temporary file: {}", content);

    Ok(())
}
// Adapted from https://docs.rs/tempfile

Other Options

• The tempdir crate is being merged into tempfile⮳.