[GTALUG] suggestion: naming temp files

Giles Orr gilesorr at gmail.com
Tue Apr 17 13:08:53 EDT 2018


On 17 April 2018 at 11:43, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

> I often want temp files.
>
> Putting them in /tmp means that they will automatically be discarded
> on reboot -- kind of handy.  But it means that they are public: they
> are in a space shared with all other users (if you have other users).
> I consider it a bad habit for that reason.
>
> Lots of people put temp files in the current directory or in their home
> directory.  That's what I do.  But then, when you come back a week later,
> how do you know that this file is garbage?  The best way is to have a
> naming convention.
>
> Many people use tmp, tmp2, tmp3 as names.  I find those visually too like
> real filenames and longer to type than I want.  The names I use are 0, 1,
> 2, 3.  They are short, distinctive, and unreasonable as permanent
> filenames.
>
> You can find the litter you left behind with:
>         locate -r '/[0-9]$'
> You will notice that the system does have some files that match too so
> you cannot blindly delete all matches.
>
> To me, it is obvious.  But I didn't think of it.  I copied this from Chris
> Sturgess almost 30 years ago.
>

If ID-ing the source of the files is an issue (as it would be if they
aren't occasionally auto-deleted, such as in /tmp/), I often use mktemp (as
has already been suggested) in combination with part of the filename being
'$(basename $0)' so you know what script created it.  That's a Bashism -
there's probably an equivalent in other shells.

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com
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