diff --git a/oslo_config/sphinxext.py b/oslo_config/sphinxext.py
index 00269310..d9f256a0 100644
--- a/oslo_config/sphinxext.py
+++ b/oslo_config/sphinxext.py
@@ -10,10 +10,6 @@
 # License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
 # under the License.
 
-from __future__ import print_function
-
-import tempfile
-
 from docutils import nodes
 from docutils.parsers import rst
 from docutils.parsers.rst import directives
@@ -308,27 +304,19 @@ class ShowOptionsDirective(rst.Directive):
         result = ViewList()
         source_name = self.state.document.current_source
 
-        with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix='.rst', delete=False) as tmp:
-            # NOTE(stephenfin): We dump the output to a tempfile to assist
-            # people in debugging their broken config options. It would be good
-            # to conditionalize this but that would require access to error
-            # state from the directive, which we don't have, and would
-            # necessitate holding the whole file, which could be rather large,
-            # in memory while we wait on the decision.
-            LOG.info('dumping output to %r', tmp.name)
-            offset = 0
-            for count, line in enumerate(_format_option_help(
-                    namespaces, split_namespaces)):
-                # FIXME(stephenfin): Some lines emitted are actually multiple
-                # lines. This throws off our counter, which is rather annoying.
-                # We handle this here but we should really handle it higher up.
-                parts = line.split('\n')
-                if len(parts) > 1:
-                    offset += len(parts) - 1
+        offset = 0
+        for count, line in enumerate(_format_option_help(
+                namespaces, split_namespaces)):
+            # FIXME(stephenfin): Some lines emitted are actually multiple
+            # lines. This throws off our counter, which is rather annoying.
+            # We handle this here but we should really handle it higher up.
+            parts = line.split('\n')
+            if len(parts) > 1:
+                offset += len(parts) - 1
 
-                for part in parts:
-                    result.append(part, source_name, count + offset)
-                tmp.write(line.encode('utf-8') + b'\n')
+            for part in parts:
+                result.append(part, source_name, count + offset)
+                LOG.debug(' '.join(['%5d' % (count + offset), part]))
 
         node = nodes.section()
         node.document = self.state.document