HP-UX Reference (11i v3 07/02) - 1 User Commands A-M (vol 1)

mktemp(1) mktemp(1)

NAME

mktemp - make a name for a temporary ﬁle

SYNOPSIS

mktemp [-c][-d directory_name ][

-p preﬁx ]

DESCRIPTION

mktemp makes a name that is suitable for use as the pathname of a temporary ﬁle, and writes that name

to the standard output. The name is chosen such that it does not duplicate the name of an existing ﬁle. If

the -c option is speciﬁed, a zero-length ﬁle is created with the generated name.

The name generated by mktemp is the concatenation of a directory name, a slash (

/ ), the value of the

LOGNAME environment variable truncated to {NAME_MAX} − 6 characters, and the process

ID of the

invoking process.

The directory name is chosen as follows:

1. If the

-d option is speciﬁed, directory_name is used.

2. Otherwise, if the

TMPDIR environment variable is set and a string that would yield a unique

name can be obtained by using the value of that variable as a directory name, this value is used.

3. Otherwise, if a string that would yield a unique name can be obtained using

/tmp as the direc-

tory,

/tmp is used.

4. Otherwise, . (current directory) is used.

If the -p option is speciﬁed, preﬁx is used instead of the value of the

LOGNAME environment variable for

name generation.

RETURN VALUE

mktemp returns zero on successful completion and non-zero if syntax, ﬁle access, or ﬁle creation errors

were encountered or a unique pathname could not be generated.