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mktemp

create a temporary file or directory

mktemp.1.man
mktemp.3.man

1. mktemp.1.man

Manpage of MKTEMP

MKTEMP

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: October 2011
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

mktemp - create a temporary file or directory

SYNOPSIS

mktemp [OPTION]... [TEMPLATE]

DESCRIPTION

Create a temporary file or directory, safely, and print its name. TEMPLATE must contain at least 3 consecutive `X's in last component. If TEMPLATE is not specified, use tmp.XXXXXXXXXX, and --tmpdir is implied. Files are created u+rw, and directories u+rwx, minus umask restrictions.

-d, --directory: create a directory, not a file
-u, --dry-run: do not create anything; merely print a name (unsafe)
-q, --quiet: suppress diagnostics about file/dir-creation failure
--suffix=SUFF: append SUFF to TEMPLATE. SUFF must not contain slash. This option is implied if TEMPLATE does not end in X.
--tmpdir[=DIR]: interpret TEMPLATE relative to DIR. If DIR is not specified, use $TMPDIR if set, else /tmp. With this option, TEMPLATE must not be an absolute name. Unlike with -t, TEMPLATE may contain slashes, but mktemp creates only the final component
-p DIR: use DIR as a prefix; implies -t [deprecated]
-t: interpret TEMPLATE as a single file name component, relative to a directory: $TMPDIR, if set; else the directory specified via -p; else /tmp [deprecated]
--help: display this help and exit
--version: output version information and exit

AUTHOR

Written by Jim Meyering and Eric Blake.

REPORTING BUGS

Report mktemp bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report mktemp translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

This document was created by man2html using the manual pages.
Time: 17:32:04 GMT, May 11, 2012

2. mktemp.3.man

Manpage of MKTEMP

MKTEMP

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2010-09-20
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

mktemp - make a unique temporary filename

SYNOPSIS

#include <stdlib.h>

char *mktemp(char *template);

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

mktemp():

Since glibc 2.12:: _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE ||
    (_XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 ||
         _XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED) &&
    !(_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 600)
Before glibc 2.12:: _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 || _XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED

DESCRIPTION

The mktemp() function generates a unique temporary filename from template. The last six characters of template must be XXXXXX and these are replaced with a string that makes the filename unique. Since it will be modified, template must not be a string constant, but should be declared as a character array.

RETURN VALUE

The mktemp() function always returns template. If a unique name was created, the last six bytes of template will have been modified in such a way that the resulting name is unique (i.e., does not exist already) If a unique name could not be created, template is made an empty string.

ERRORS

EINVAL: The last six characters of template were not XXXXXX.

CONFORMING TO

4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001. POSIX.1-2008 removes the specification of mktemp().

NOTES

The prototype is in <unistd.h> for libc4, libc5, glibc1; glibc2 follows the Single UNIX Specification and has the prototype in <stdlib.h>.

BUGS

Never use mktemp(). Some implementations follow 4.3BSD and replace XXXXXX by the current process ID and a single letter, so that at most 26 different names can be returned. Since on the one hand the names are easy to guess, and on the other hand there is a race between testing whether the name exists and opening the file, every use of mktemp() is a security risk. The race is avoided by mkstemp(3).

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.32 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.