NAME
mkstemp, mkostemp - create a unique temporary file
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdlib.h>
int mkstemp(char *template);
int mkostemp (char *template, int flags);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
mkstemp(): _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500
mkostemp(): _GNU_SOURCE
DESCRIPTION
The mkstemp() function generates a unique temporary filename from
template, creates and opens the file, and returns an open file
descriptor for the file.
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.
The file is created with permissions 0600, that is, read plus write for
owner only. (In glibc versions 2.06 and earlier, the file is created
with permissions 0666, that is, read and write for all users.) The
returned file descriptor provides both read and write access to the
file. The file is opened with the open(2) O_EXCL flag, guaranteeing
that the caller is the process that creates the file.
mkostemp() is like mkstemp(), with the difference that flags as for
open(2) may be specified in flags (e.g., O_APPEND, O_SYNC).
RETURN VALUE
On success, these functions return the file descriptor of the temporary
file. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.
ERRORS
EEXIST Could not create a unique temporary filename. Now the contents
of template are undefined.
EINVAL The last six characters of template were not XXXXXX. Now
template is unchanged.
These functions may also fail with any of the errors described for
open(2).
VERSIONS
mkostemp() is available since glibc 2.7.
CONFORMING TO
mkstemp(): 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001. mkostemp(): is a glibc extension.
NOTES
The old behavior of creating a file with mode 0666 may be a security
risk, especially since other Unix flavors use 0600, and somebody might
overlook this detail when porting programs.
More generally, the POSIX specification of mkstemp() does not say
anything about file modes, so the application should make sure its file
mode creation mask (see umask(2)) is set appropriately before calling
mkstemp() (and mkostemp()).
The prototype for mktemp() is in <unistd.h> for libc4, libc5, glibc1;
glibc2 follows POSIX.1 and has the prototype in <stdlib.h>.
SEE ALSO
mkdtemp(3), mktemp(3), tempnam(3), tmpfile(3), tmpnam(3)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.24 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/.