@staticmethod
def _create_file(file):
    """
        Creates a file, but will not fail if the file already exists. 
        This is vulnerable to race conditions; use this for cases where it 
        doesn't matter if this process is the one that created the file.

        :param str file: File to create.
        """
    with open(file, 'w') as fout:
        fout.write('')
