Creating a temporary directory in Windows?

c# .net windows temporary-directory
Josh Kelley picture Josh Kelley · Nov 10, 2008 · Viewed 84.2k times · Source

What's the best way to get a temp directory name in Windows? I see that I can use GetTempPath and GetTempFileName to create a temporary file, but is there any equivalent to the Linux / BSD mkdtemp function for creating a temporary directory?

Answer

Scott Dorman picture Scott Dorman · Nov 10, 2008

No, there is no equivalent to mkdtemp. The best option is to use a combination of GetTempPath and GetRandomFileName.

You would need code similar to this:

public string GetTemporaryDirectory()
{
   string tempDirectory = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), Path.GetRandomFileName());
   Directory.CreateDirectory(tempDirectory);
   return tempDirectory;
}

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