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TEMPNAM
!!!TEMPNAM
NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
RETURN VALUE
ERRORS
NOTES
BUGS
CONFORMING TO
SEE ALSO
----
!!NAME


tempnam - create a name for a temporary file
!!SYNOPSIS


__#include
__''dir''__, const char *__''pfx''__);
__
!!DESCRIPTION


The __tempnam()__ function returns a pointer to a string
that is a valid filename, and such that a file with this
name did not exist when __tempnam()__ checked. The
filename suffix of the pathname generated will start with
''pfx'' in case ''pfx'' is a non-NULL string of at
most five bytes. The directory prefix part of the pathname
generated is required to be `appropriate' (often that at
least implies writable). Attempts to find an appropriate
directory go through the following steps: (i) In case the
environment variable TMPDIR exists and contains the name of
an appropriate directory, that is used. (ii) Otherwise, if
the ''dir'' argument is non-NULL and appropriate, it is
used. (iii) Otherwise, P_tmpdir (as defined in
'''') is used when appropriate. (iv)
Finally an implementation-defined directory may be
used.
!!RETURN VALUE


The __tempnam()__ function returns a pointer to a unique
temporary filename, or NULL if a unique name cannot be
generated.
!!ERRORS


__ENOMEM__


Allocation of storage failed.
!!NOTES


SUSv2 does not mention the use of TMPDIR; glibc will use it
only when the program is not suid. SVID2 specifies that the
directory used under (iv) is ''/tmp''. SVID2 specifies
that the string returned by __tempnam()__ was allocated
using malloc(3) and hence can be freed by
free(3).


The __tempnam()__ function generates a different string
each time it is called, up to TMP_MAX (defined in
'''') times. If it is called more than
TMP_MAX times, the behaviour is implementation
defined.


In case the ''pfx'' argument has length larger than five,
glibc will use the first five bytes. Upon failure to find a
unique name, glibc will return EEXIST.
!!BUGS


The precise meaning of `appropriate' is undefined; it is
unspecified how accessibility of a directory is determined.
Never use this function. Use tmpfile(3)
instead.
!!CONFORMING TO


SVID 2, BSD 4.3
!!SEE ALSO


mktemp(3), mkstemp(3), tmpfile(3),
tmpnam(3)
----

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Last edited on Tuesday, June 4, 2002 12:24:38 am by "perry"

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