How to delete only the content of file in python
There are several ways of setting the logical size of a file to 0, depending how you access that file:
To empty an open file:
def deleteContent(pfile):
pfile.seek(0)
pfile.truncate()
To empty an open file whose file descriptor is known:
def deleteContent(fd):
os.ftruncate(fd, 0)
os.lseek(fd, 0, os.SEEK_SET)
To empty a closed file (whose name is known)
def deleteContent(fName):
with open(fName, "w"):
pass
I have a temporary file with some content [...] I need to reuse that file
That being said, in the general case it is probably not efficient nor desirable to reuse a temporary file. Unless you have very specific needs, you should think about using tempfile.TemporaryFile
and a context manager to almost transparently create/use/delete your temporary files:
import tempfile
with tempfile.TemporaryFile() as temp:
# do whatever you want with `temp`
# <- `tempfile` guarantees the file being both closed *and* deleted
# on the exit of the context manager