sneako / briefly

Simple, robust temporary file support for Elixir.

Briefly

Simple, robust temporary file support for Elixir.

Highlighted Features

• Create temporary files with prefix and extname options
• Files are removed after the process that requested the file dies
• File creation is based on Plug.Upload's robust retry logic
• Configurable; built-in support for system environment variables and fallbacks

Installation

Add as a dependency to your mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    briefly: "~> 0.4"
  ]
end

Install it with mix deps.get.

Example

Create a file:

{:ok, path} = Briefly.create
File.write!(path, "Some Text")
content = File.read!(path)
# When this process exits, the file at `path` is removed

Create a directory:

{:ok, path} = Briefly.create(directory: true)
File.write!(Path.join(path, "test.txt"), "Some Text")
# When this process exits, the directory and file are removed

See the documentation to see the options that available to Briefly.create/1 and Briefly.create!/1.

Configuration

The default, out-of-the-box settings for Briefly are equivalent to the following Mix config:

config :briefly,
  directory: [{:system, "TMPDIR"}, {:system, "TMP"}, {:system, "TEMP"}, "/tmp"],
  default_prefix: "briefly",
  default_extname: ""

directory here declares an ordered list of possible directory definitions that Briefly will check in order.

The {:system, env_var} tuples point to system environment variables to be checked. If none of these are defined, Briefly will use the final entry: /tmp.

You can override the settings with your own candidates in your application Mix config (and pass prefix and extname to Briefly.create to override default_prefix and default_extname on a case-by-case basis).

License

See LICENSE.