{"id":20832,"date":"2022-10-02T22:30:49","date_gmt":"2022-10-02T17:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/?p=20832"},"modified":"2022-11-16T19:00:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T13:30:29","slug":"get-temp-directory-python","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/get-temp-directory-python\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Temp Directory in Python"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"toc_container\" class=\"toc_light_blue no_bullets\"><p class=\"toc_title\">Table of Contents<\/p><ul class=\"toc_list\"><li><a href=\"#Get_Temp_Directory_in_Python\">Get Temp Directory in Python<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#Using_the_tempfileGettempdir_Function_to_Get_Temp_Directory_in_Python\">Using the tempfile.Gettempdir() Function to Get Temp Directory in Python<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#Using_the_tempfileGettempdirb_Function_to_Get_Temp_Directory_in_Python\">Using the tempfile.Gettempdirb() Function to Get Temp Directory in Python<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#Using_the_tempfileTempdir_Variable_to_Get_Temp_Directory_in_Python\">Using the tempfile.Tempdir Variable to Get Temp Directory in Python<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#Conclusion\">Conclusion<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<p>Sometimes we can encounter scenarios where we wish to store temporary data in Python. This can include situations of creating temporary files and directories.<\/p>\n<p>In this tutorial, we will discuss how to get temp directory in Python.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"Get_Temp_Directory_in_Python\">Get Temp Directory in Python<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The <code>tempfile<\/code> module is used in Python to work with and create temporary files and directories. We will discuss different methods from this module to get temp directory in Python.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"Using_the_tempfileGettempdir_Function_to_Get_Temp_Directory_in_Python\">Using the <code>tempfile.Gettempdir()<\/code> Function to Get Temp Directory in Python<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The <code>gettempdir()<\/code> function from the <code>tempfile<\/code> module is used to return the default temporary directory that is used by the user for working with temporary files. It follows a set of precedents to determine the temporary directory.<\/p>\n<p>This directory can be interpreted from the environment variables. Usually, it is the directory named <code>TMP<\/code>, <code>TEMP<\/code>, or <code>TMPDIR<\/code> by the environment variable. <\/p>\n<p>If the directory cannot be interpreted from the same then it may return the platform-specific directory. This can be like <code>C:\\TMP<\/code>, <code>C:\\TEMP<\/code> in the windows or like <code>tmp<\/code>, <code>usr\/tmp<\/code> on other platforms.<\/p>\n<p>If still the temporary directory is not determined, then the function will return the current working directory as the same.<\/p>\n<p>For example,<\/p>\n<pre code = \"python\" title= \"Using the gettempdir() function\" mark=\"3\">\nimport tempfile\npath = tempfile.gettempdir()\nprint(path)    \n<\/pre>\n<p>Output:<\/p>\n<div class=\"content-box-green\">\nC:\\tmp\n<\/div>\n<p>The above example shows how to get temp directory in Python using the <code>gettempdir()<\/code> method. In case, you need to create temp file, you can follow how to <a href=\"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/create-temp-file-python\/\" title=\"create temp file in Python\">create temp file in Python<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In Python 3.1 and above, the result is returned as a string. To get the value in bytes we can use the function discussed below.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"Using_the_tempfileGettempdirb_Function_to_Get_Temp_Directory_in_Python\">Using the <code>tempfile.Gettempdirb()<\/code> Function to Get Temp Directory in Python<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The <code>gettempdirb()<\/code> function from the <code>tempfile<\/code> module returns the temporary directory as bytes. That is the only distinction between the <code>gettempdir()<\/code> and <code>gettempdirb()<\/code> functions.<\/p>\n<p>This can be useful in Python 3 which changed the encoding and introduced a distinction between strings and bytes.<\/p>\n<p>For example,<\/p>\n<pre code = \"python\" title= \"Using the gettempdirb() function\" mark=\"3\">\nimport tempfile\npath = tempfile.gettempdirb()\nprint(path)    \n<\/pre>\n<p>Output:<\/p>\n<div class=\"content-box-green\">\nb&#8217;C:\\tmp&#8217;\n<\/div>\n<p>The <code>b<\/code> prefix in the above example indicates that the final result is in the form of bytes.<\/p>\n<section class=\"read-more-posts\">\n<div class=\"rm-header\">\n<h2>Further reading:<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rm-wrap\">\n<div class=\"rm-item\">\n<h5><a href=\"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/create-file-if-not-exists-in-python\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Create File if not exists in Python<\/a><\/h5>\n<div class=\"ex\">\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/create-file-if-not-exists-in-python\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more \u2192<\/a>\n        <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rm-item\">\n<h5><a href=\"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/python-overwrite-file\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Overwrite file in Python<\/a><\/h5>\n<div class=\"ex\">\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/python-overwrite-file\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more \u2192<\/a>\n        <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<h3><span id=\"Using_the_tempfileTempdir_Variable_to_Get_Temp_Directory_in_Python\">Using the <code>tempfile.Tempdir<\/code> Variable to Get Temp Directory in Python<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>An important thing to remember is that both the above-mentioned methods use a pre-defined global variable to return the temp directory. This variable is called <code>tempfile.tempdir<\/code>. It is not recommended to set this variable manually and it is also not advised to set its value as bytes as it will alter the return type of functions like <code>mkdtemp<\/code> and <code>mkstemp<\/code> that create further temp directories and files.<\/p>\n<p>We can view this variable directly as well after calling any of the above two functions.<\/p>\n<p>For example,<\/p>\n<pre code = \"python\" title= \"Using the tempdir variable\" mark=\"3\">\nimport tempfile\npath = tempfile.tempdir\nprint(path)    \n<\/pre>\n<p>Output:<\/p>\n<div class=\"content-box-green\">\nC:\\tmp\n<\/div>\n<h2><span id=\"Conclusion\">Conclusion<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>To conclude, we discussed several methods of the <code>tempfile<\/code> module to get temp directory in Python. First, we discussed the use of the <code>tempfile<\/code> module. Then, we demonstrated the use of the <code>gettempdir()<\/code> and <code>gettempdirb()<\/code> functions to get temp directory in Python in different formats. We discussed the precedence of rules to determine the same and how they both use the global variable <code>tempdir<\/code> to return the value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Table of ContentsGet Temp Directory in PythonUsing the tempfile.Gettempdir() Function to Get Temp Directory in PythonUsing the tempfile.Gettempdirb() Function to Get Temp Directory in PythonUsing the tempfile.Tempdir Variable to Get Temp Directory in PythonConclusion Sometimes we can encounter scenarios where we wish to store temporary data in Python. This can include situations of creating temporary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[185,145],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20832"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21194,"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20832\/revisions\/21194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/java2blog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}