In this revision <http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/b6da97930f63>, the possible characters that comprise a temporary file decreased.  It was noted in this thread <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2010-November/105452.html>.  The old character set had more than 24 times as many possibilities! [1]

According to POSIX, the possible characters from which temporary file names should be constructed is [A-Za-z0-9._-].  [2]

The character set should be restored to [A-Za-z0-9_] at the least.  A patch is attached.

The practices of other platforms, libraries, and languages are listed below.  [3-12]



[1]
Old character set: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789_
(26+26+10+1) ^ 6
62523502209

Current character set: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_
(26+10+1) ^ 6
2565726409

62523502209 / 2565726409
24.36873315474378000994



[2] POSIX <http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap03.html#tag_03_276>

3.276 Portable Filename Character Set

The set of characters from which portable filenames are constructed.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 . _ -



[3] int mkstemp(char *template); <http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/mkstemp.html>
The string in template should look like a filename with six trailing 'X' s; mkstemp() replaces each 'X' with a character from the portable filename character set.



[4] glibc <http://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob_plain;f=sysdeps/posix/tempname.c;hb=HEAD>
/* These are the characters used in temporary filenames.  */
static const char letters[] =
"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";



[5] gnulib <http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gnulib.git;a=blob;f=lib/tempname.c;hb=HEAD>
/* These are the characters used in temporary file names.  */
static const char letters[] =
"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";



[6] freebsd libc <http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/lib/libc/stdio/mktemp.c?view=markup>
static const unsigned char padchar[] =
"0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";



[7] openbsd libc <http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/lib/libc/stdio/mktemp.c?rev=HEAD;content-type=text%2Fplain>
#define TEMPCHARS	"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789"



[8] netbsd libc <http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/~checkout~/src/lib/libc/stdio/gettemp.c?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/plain>
(uses pid)



[9] perl <http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob/HEAD:/cpan/File-Temp/Temp.pm>
my @CHARS = (qw/ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
                 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
                 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 _
               /);



[10] php <http://svn.php.net/viewvc/php/php-src/trunk/main/php_open_temporary_file.c?view=markup>
(if Windows, call GetTempFileName; else if havel mkstemp, call it; else call mktemp)



[11] ruby <http://svn.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/trunk/lib/tmpdir.rb?view=markup>
(uses current date, pid, and a random number between 0 and 4294967296 represented in base 36 (lowercase))



[12] Windows <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa364991.aspx>
<path>\<pre><uuuu>.TMP

Component	Meaning
<path>	Path specified by the lpPathName parameter
<pre>	First three letters of the lpPrefixString string
<uuuu>	Hexadecimal value of uUnique

Only the lower 16 bits of the uUnique parameter are used. This limits GetTempFileName to a maximum of 65,535 unique file names if the lpPathName and lpPrefixString parameters remain the same.