how to use tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() in python

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I want to use tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() to write some contents into it and then open that file. I have written following code:

tf = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile()
tfName = tf.name
tf.seek(0)
tf.write(contents)
tf.flush()

but I am unable to open this file and see its contents in notepad or similar application. Is there any way to achieve this? Why cant I do something like: 

os.system('start notepad.exe ' + tfName)

at the end

temporary-files file-io python
3 Answers

Here is a useful context manager for this. (In my opinion, this functionality should be part of the Python standard library.)

# python2 or python3
import contextlib
import os

@contextlib.contextmanager
def temporary_filename(suffix=None):
  """Context that introduces a temporary file.

  Creates a temporary file, yields its name, and upon context exit, deletes it.
  (In contrast, tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() provides a 'file' object and
  deletes the file as soon as that file object is closed, so the temporary file
  cannot be safely re-opened by another library or process.)

  Args:
    suffix: desired filename extension (e.g. '.mp4').

  Yields:
    The name of the temporary file.
  """
  import tempfile
  try:
    f = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix=suffix, delete=False)
    tmp_name = f.name
    f.close()
    yield tmp_name
  finally:
    os.unlink(tmp_name)

# Example:
with temporary_filename() as filename:
  os.system('echo Hello >' + filename)
  assert 6 <= os.path.getsize(filename) <= 8  # depending on text EOL
assert not os.path.exists(filename)
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