[Python-Dev] fixing tests on windows

Wed Apr 2 11:13:24 CEST 2008

Tim Golden wrote:
> I admit: this did occur to me on the train this am. While I
> try to think of a robust way to handle this, other people have
> proposed variations on pid-based / tempdir based filenames instead
> of the same name for each test. In principle this sounds good to me,
> but I'm not at all well-placed to assess the impact it might have
> on the unit tests in general.

Personally, I've never really understood the purpose of 
test_support.TESTFN. Whenever I've needed a temporary file for a test, I 
just use the tempfile module (e.g. test_cmd_line_script, test_runpy). 
Tests using that module don't care if the old files take 'a while' to 
get deleted on Windows, as tempfile uses a different name each time anyway.
Is using a fixed TESTFN just an old approach that predates the existence 
of a robust tempfile module in the standard library?
Cheers,
Nick.
-- 
Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan at gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia
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