When I iterate through a list created using os.listdir it seems to grow
as I create files in that directory. I want a static copy of the list of
files in the directory prior to me writing new files into it.

Here is my code:

fileList = os.listdir(temporaryDirectory)

for curFile in fileList:
   # print the file list to see if it is indeed growing
   print FileList
   fp = file(os.path.join(temporaryDirectory, "." + curFile), 'w')
   # write stuff
   fp.close()

Here is the output:

['a', 'b', 'c']
['a', 'b', 'c', '.a']
['a', 'b', 'c', '.a', '.b']
['a', 'b', 'c', '.a', '.b', '.c']

So the list is growing and eventually curFile iterates through the list
of files that were created. This behaviour was unwanted in my case and I
couldn't find any documentation about this.

What's 'FileList' in your code?  (It's not the same as 'fileList', since
Python identifiers are case sensitive.)

What's 'temporaryDirectory'?

Please could you cut and paste an executable code snippet that exhibits
the problem, along with any other instructions necessary to reproduce
(e.g. "First create a directory 'tmp' containing files 'a', 'b' and 'c'").

I think I found my problem. Since I didn't *COPY* the array that I
created with os.listdir I was actually appending to it, my bad.