os.tempnam() ignores dir

[Randall Hopper]

itsy bitsy meowbot:
 |Randall Hopper wrote:
 |>     >>> print os.tempnam( '/home/rhh', 'prefix' )
 |>     /usr/tmp/prefiCAAa0MMvw
 |> 
 |> Is this a bug?  I don't see any caveat in the docs about Python ignoring
 |> the dir argument.
 |
 |It's not really a Python bug.  os.tempnam relies on the system's
 |underlying tempnam() function, which varies from platform to platform
 |and can do weird things to the path argument.
 |
 |In a typical Unix, it will do something like the following:
 |
 |- TMPDIR defined in the environment: use that for the path.
 |- path not specified or specified path doesn't exist: punt to the default
 |  coded into in stdio.h.
 |- all else fails: use /tmp

Thanks for the clarification.  The above matches the behavior I'm seeing here.

I'll use Python to unset TMPDIR before calling Python's tempnam so it
will work as advertised.

Randall

-- 
Randall Hopper
aa8vb at yahoo.com