need ability to create tempfile from PIR

[coke]

to fully convert tests from Perl to PIR, we need a PIR-level analog to:

    use Parrot::Test::Util 'create_tempfile';

... I'm not sure if we can automatically delete; that would be nice, but a manual deletion at program exit is sufficient.

[fperrad]

a StringHandle PMC could do the job.

[jrtayloriv]

What about implementing something like the O_TEMPORARY flag with parrot's open op? (a file opened with the O_TEMPORARY flag is created with a unique name, and will be deleted by the OS when close() is called on the last open file descriptor for the tempfile)

On Linux, this could be done with the mkstemp() function from libc. The PIR syntax could be something like open "template", 't' (see 'man 3 mkstemp' for what I mean by "template")

I think something similar could be implemented for Windows using the GetTempFileName, GetTempFilePath, and CreateFile functions.

Any reasons why this would not be a good way to go about it?

[dukeleto]

jrtayloriv++ . Not having to worry about cleaning up temp files and where they go really simplifies test writing.

[dukeleto]

Should this be implemented as a dynop?

[cotto]

A dynop would be fine. Implementing it somehow would be great.

[whiteknight]

I think we can either add an O_TEMPORARY flag to IO API, or we can add functionality to the OS PMC. I'm going to take a look at some options for this, because I have use for this kind of feature in Rosella, among other places.