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tempfile

(1)

create a temporary file in a safe manner

User commands7 optionsdebianutils 5.23.2
tempfile [-d DIR] [-p STRING] [-s STRING] [-m MODE] [-n FILE] [--directory=DIR] [--prefix=STRING] [--suffix=STRING] [--mode=MODE] [--name=FILE] [--help] [--version]

Options

7
-d--directoryDIR

Place the file in DIR.

-m--modeMODE

Open the file with MODE instead of 0600.

-n--nameFILE

Use FILE for the name instead of tempnam(3). The options -d, -p, and -s are ignored if this option is given.

-p--prefixSTRING

Use up to five letters of STRING to generate the name.

-s--suffixSTRING

Generate the file with STRING as the suffix.

--help

Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.

--version

Print version information on standard output and exit successfully.

DESCRIPTION

tempfile creates a temporary file in a safe manner. It uses mkstemps(3) to choose the name and opens it with O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_EXCL. The filename is printed on standard output.

The directory in which to create the file might be searched for in this order:

In case the environment variable TMPDIR exists and contains the name of an appropriate directory, that is used.
Otherwise, if the --directory argument is specified and appropriate, it is used.
Otherwise, P_tmpdir (as defined in <stdio.h>) is used when appropriate.
Finally an implementation-defined directory (/tmp) may be used.

RETURN VALUES

An exit status of 0 means the temporary file was created successfully. Any other exit status indicates an error.

BUGS

Exclusive creation is not guaranteed when creating files on NFS partitions. tempfile cannot make temporary directories. tempfile is deprecated; you should use mktemp(1) instead.

EXAMPLE

#!/bin/sh
#[...]
t=$(tempfile) || exit
trap "rm -f -- '$t'" EXIT
#[...]
rm -f -- "$t"
trap - EXIT
exit

See also

tempnam(3)mktemp(1)