How to safely write to a file?

by

If you see Python’s documentation, it clearly mentions that os.rename() is an atomic operation. So in your case, writing data to a temporary file and then renaming it to the original file would be quite safe.

Another way could work like this:

  • let original file be abc.xml
  • create abc.xml.tmp and write new data to it
  • rename abc.xml to abc.xml.bak
  • rename abc.xml.tmp to abc.xml
  • after new abc.xml is properly put in place, remove abc.xml.bak

As you can see that you have the abc.xml.bak with you which you can use to restore if there are any issues related with the tmp file and of copying it back.

More Related Contents:

  1. How do I watch a file for changes?
  2. How do I change the file creation date of a Windows file?
  3. How to name a file using a value in a list in a dictionary?
  4. ‘pip’ is not recognized as an internal or external command
  5. pip how to remove incorrectly installed package with a leading dash: “-pkgname”
  6. “ImportError: No module named site” on Windows
  7. Running windows shell commands with python
  8. What is the correct way to set Python’s locale on Windows?
  9. Shebang Notation: Python Scripts on Windows and Linux?
  10. Compare two different files line by line in python
  11. Get HWND of each Window?
  12. Read from file after write, before closing
  13. Python | accessing dll using ctypes
  14. TypeError: expected a character buffer object – while trying to save integer to textfile
  15. python – Read file from and to specific lines of text
  16. Re-read an open file Python
  17. Fastest way to process a large file?
  18. Get Line Number of certain phrase in file Python
  19. Running Cython in Windows x64 – fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: ‘basetsd.h’: No such file or directory
  20. Unicode filenames on Windows with Python & subprocess.Popen()
  21. Colorama for Python, Not returning colored print lines on Windows
  22. Fastest way to write huge data in file
  23. Reading integers from binary file in Python
  24. pickle – putting more than 1 object in a file? [duplicate]
  25. Read random lines from huge CSV file
  26. ‘pip setup.py bdist_wheel’ no longer builds forced non-pure wheels
  27. Add “django-admin.py” path to command line on Windows 7
  28. What is the difference between .py and .pyc files? [duplicate]
  29. Python long filename support broken in Windows
  30. Detecting computer/program shutdown in Python?

Leave a Comment