Generate temporary file names without creating actual file in Python

If you want a temp file name only you can call inner tempfile function _get_candidate_names():

import tempfile

temp_name = next(tempfile._get_candidate_names())
% e.g. px9cp65s

Calling next again, will return another name, etc. This does not give you the path to temp folder. To get default ‘tmp’ directory, use:

defult_tmp_dir = tempfile._get_default_tempdir()
% results in: /tmp