Make a unique filesystem path, without creating the file

[Nobody]

On Mon, 15 Feb 2016 15:28:27 +1100, Ben Finney wrote:

> The behaviour is already implemented in the standard library. What I'm
> looking for is a way to use it (not re-implement it) that is public API
> and isn't scolded by the library documentation.

So, basically you want (essentially) the exact behaviour of
tempfile.mktemp(), except without any mention of the (genuine) risks that
such a function presents?

I suspect that you'll have to settle for either a) using that function and
simply documenting the reasons why it isn't an issue in this particular
case, or b) re-implementing it (so that you can choose to avoid mentioning
the issue in its documentation).

At the outside, you *might* have a third option: c) persuade the
maintainers to tweak the documentation to further clarify that the risk
arises from creating a file with the returned name, not from simply
calling the function. But actually it's already fairly clear if you
actually read it.

If it's the bold-face "Warning:" and the red background that you don't
like, I wouldn't expect those to go away either for mktemp() or for any
other function with similar behaviour (i.e. something which someone
*might* try to use to actually create temporary files). The simple fact
that it might get used that way is enough to warrant a prominent warning.