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.Dd November, 20, 1996
.Dt MKTEMP 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm mktemp
.Nd make temporary file name (unique)
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm mktemp
.Op Fl d
.Op Fl q
.Op Fl u
.Ar template
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm mktemp
utility takes the given file name template and overwrites a
portion of it to create a file name.  This file name is unique
and suitable for use by the application.  The template may be
any file name with some number of
.Ql X Ns s
appended
to it, for example
.Pa /tmp/temp.XXXX .
The trailing
.Ql X Ns s
are replaced with the current process number and/or a
unique letter combination.
The number of unique file names
.Nm
can return depends on the number of
.Ql X Ns s
provided; six
.Ql X Ns s
will
result in
.Nm
testing roughly 26 ** 6 combinations.
.Pp
If
.Nm
can successfully generate a unique file name, the file
is created with mode 0600 (unless the
.Fl u
flag is given) and the filename is printed
to standard output.
.Sh OPTIONS
.Bl -tag -width indent
The available options are as follows:
.It Fl d
Make a directory instead of a file.
.It Fl q
Fail silently if an error occurs.  This is useful if
a script does not want error output to go to standard error.
.It Fl u
Operate in
.Dq unsafe
mode.  The temp file will be unlinked before
.Nm
exits.  This is slightly better than
.Fn mktemp 3
but still introduces a race condition.  Use of this
option is not encouraged.
.El
.Sh RETURN VALUES
The
.Nm
utility
exits with a value of 0 on success, and 1 on failure.
.Sh EXAMPLES
The following
.Xr sh 1
fragment illustrates a simple use of
.Nm
where the script should quit if it cannot get a safe
temporary file.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
TMPFILE=`mktemp /tmp/$0.XXXXXX` || exit 1
echo "program output" >> $TMPFILE
.Ed
.Pp
In this case, we want the script to catch the error itself.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
TMPFILE=`mktemp -q /tmp/$0.XXXXXX`
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
	echo "$0: Can't create temp file, exiting..."
	exit 1
fi
.Ed
.Pp
Note that one can also check to see that $TMPFILE is
zero length instead of checking $?.  This would allow
the check to be done later one in the script (since
$? would get clobbered by the next shell command).
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr mkstemp 3 ,
.Xr mktemp 3
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility appeared in
.Bx Open .