g.tempfile -d: make a directory not a filename

[hamish]

Hi,

in grass7 there is a new g.tempfile -d flag to do a "dry run". It is used in core.py by grass.tempdir() to later make a directory by the returned string name. This has three things against it: 1) it causes a race condition. 2) it diverges from the usage of /bin/mktemp -d, which is used to make a directory. 3) it's a lot more convoluted than just making the tempfile a directory in the first place, which is the only(?) known use of -d for dryrun.

I propose that the -d flag in g.tempfile be changed to match mktemp's usage, i.e. make a directory instead.

It is not present in grass6, so there is not a backwards compatibility problem to change it now. I'd suggest that the -d flag to make a new directory would be useful to backport to grass6 once it is ready.

thanks, Hamish

ps- argh trac is logging out every 5 minutes again

[martinl]

No objections, feel free to implement it.

[neteler]

(Un)related:

To avoid race conditions on high end systems, the use of PID is not save. For a new G_mktemp() implementation, see also ticket #2153

[martinl]

Milestone renamed

[mmetz]

The behaviour of a flag should not be changed within minor releases, bumping up to GRASS 8.