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).
This page is part of release 3.14 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/.
