Just a note for developers who write modules that create temporary files...

I've found that a register_shutdown_function('file_delete', realpath($path_to_file)) is pretty dependable for cleaning up... note the use of realpath, it's necessary for shutdown functions
and file_delete has the file_exists check in it to prevent errors in the shutdown phase..

.darrel.

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 5:43 AM, Miriam Natanzon <miriam@mail.snunit.k12.il> wrote:
Thanks for your all responses!

I'm using Drupal 5.7, and understood Drupal core and also Drupal cron didn't
take care of that issue of deleting old unused files from Tmp...
I think it's the right place because I didn't expect Drupal to fix it in
this version and wonder if someone develop a script fix it.
I saw there files with "tmp_" prefix (machine names) and also files with
human-names.
( Someone guessed there is an module that upload files and didn't care of
deleting the temporary files, It's can be the audio module in my site.. )



Miriam.


-----Original Message-----
From: development-bounces@drupal.org
[mailto:development-bounces@drupal.org]On Behalf Of mark burdett
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 7:44 PM
To: development@drupal.org
Subject: Re: [development] Tmp directory

I'm guessing this issue is re: Drupal 5, but in Drupal 6 there is an
over-zealous temp file cleanup, it only allows them to stick around
for 24 minutes. http://drupal.org/node/276018

--mark

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Morbus Iff <morbus@disobey.com> wrote:
>>> It is a development request to the extent that this may be a "bug by
>>> design"; what is supposed to happen to the tmp files? Are people who may
>>> not
>>> be system admin gurus supposed to know that these files accumulate, and
>>> what
>>> to do with them?
>>
>> But the OP didn't raise a development topic; it was a topic of support.
>> There is a different list for that.
>
> I'm on the fence. Largely:
>
>  * if Drupal is leaving tmp files around, something has gone wrong
>   at a high enough level that we probably /can't/ "fix it" by
>   removing the temp files.
>
>  * most servers have a tmpwatch utility of some kind that automatically
>   purges left over files. This, of course, presumes that Drupal's temp
>   directory remains at the default /tmp. If it's moved elsewhere, then
>   Drupal becomes responsible for cleaning up the files (and we'd
>   probably want to implement some sort of post-cleanup in a cron).
>
> --
> Morbus Iff ( and think about the bad things that I didn't do )
> Technical: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/779
> Enjoy: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.videounderbelly.com/
> aim: akaMorbus / skype: morbusiff / icq: 2927491 / jabber.org: morbus
>