MKTEMP(3)MKTEMP(3)NAMEmktemp - create a unique file name
SYNOPSIS
char *
mktemp(template)
char *template;
mkstemp(template)
char *template;
DESCRIPTION
Mktemp takes a file name template and overwrites it to create a unique
file name for use by the application. The template may be any file
name with some number of X's appended to it, for example
``/tmp/temp.XXXX''. The trailing X's are replaced with the current
process number and/or a unique letter combination. The number of
unique file names mktemp can return depends on the number of X's pro‐
vided; six X's will result in mktemp testing roughly 26 ** 6 combina‐
tions.
Mkstemp makes the same replacement to the template and creates the tem‐
plate file, mode 0600, returning a file descriptor opened for reading
and writing. This avoids the race between testing for a file's exis‐
tence and opening it for use.
RETURN VALUE
Mktemp returns a pointer to the template on success and NULL on fail‐
ure. Mkstemp returns -1 if no suitable file could be created. If
either call fails an error code is placed in the global location errno.
ERRORS
Mktemp and mkstemp may set errno to one of the following values:
[ENOTDIR]
The pathname portion of the template is not an existing direc‐
tory.
Mktemp and mkstemp may also set errno to any value specified by the
stat(2) function. Mkstemp may also set errno to any value specified by
the open(2) function.
SEE ALSOchmod(2), getpid(2), open(2), stat(2)7th Edition June 23, 1990 MKTEMP(3)
