st: Post-program tempfiles or a temp directory?

[James Sams <sams.james@gmail.com>]

Short version: I want to create a -tempdir- that behaves like -tempfile-, only 
for directories.

I'm trying to write a program that will create lots of tempfiles that will not 
be deleted after the end of the program but will be deleted after the end of a 
stata session. The purpose of this is to work with very large data in smaller 
logical chunks in a convenient manner.

There does not seem to be any kind of flag to -tempfile- that will tell it to 
not be deleted after the end of the program run, though such a flag would be 
convenient.

Similarly, I tried setting up the program to take a temporary directory 
(created by tempfile actually_a_dir ; mkdir `actually_a_dir') and then pass the 
`actually_a_dir' to my program, have it create the files there, hoping that the 
directory would be cleaned up like a tempfile would be. However, this is not 
the case. The directory is not even cleaned on stata's exit.

If I can't manipulate tempfile to create files that will last longer, I want to 
create -tempdir- that will create a hook similar to Stata's tempfile to clean 
up the directory on the exit of the current context, or whatever exactly 
tempfile's rule is.

Thoughts?


-- 
James Sams
sams.james@gmail.com
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