Introduction

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Meziantou.Framework.TemporaryDirectory provides two types: TemporaryDirectory, a unique empty folder, and TemporaryFile, a unique file. Both are deleted when you dispose them, so a using statement is enough to clean up after a test, a build step or any work that needs scratch space on disk.

What you can do with it

Create a scratch folder and the files and subfolders you need inside it, with paths that cannot escape it. See Temporary directories.
Create a single temporary file, with a generated name, a name of your choice or at a path of your choice. See Temporary files.
Pass them to any API: both types convert implicitly to string and to FullPath, and to DirectoryInfo or FileInfo.

Principles

Unique names. Every folder and file name contains a timestamp and a GUID, so two instances never share a path, even when tests run in parallel.
Private. On Linux and macOS, the folders are created so that only the current user can access them, and the files so that only the current user can read and write them.
Deleted when disposed. Disposing deletes the folder and everything it contains, read-only files included. Disposing twice does nothing, so it cannot delete a folder that something else created at the same path afterward.
Absolute paths. Paths are FullPath values: absolute and normalized.

Namespace

TemporaryDirectory and TemporaryFile are in the Meziantou.Framework namespace, as FullPath is.

Next steps

Getting started: install the package and create your first temporary folder.