ultrix man page for mktemp

mktemp(1)						      General Commands Manual							 mktemp(1)

Name
       mktemp - make a name for a temporary file

Syntax
       mktemp [ -c ] [ -d directory_name ] [ -p prefix ]

Description
       The  command makes a name for the pathname of a temporary file and writes that name to standard output. The name will not duplicate that of
       an existing file. The command does not create a new file. The file named must actually be created before can generate a new filename.

       Subsequent calls to will only generate a new file name if all previously generated file names have been	created  by  the  user	and  still
       exist.  Error messages are written to standard error.

       The  directory_name generated by is the concatenation of a directory name, a slash (/), a file prefix, a dot (.), a four digit number and a
       unique character.

       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 using the value of
	       that variable as a directory name, this value is used.

	  (3)  Otherwise, is used.

       The prefix is chosen as follows:

	  (1)  If the -p option is specified, prefix is used.

	  (2)  Otherwise, if the LOGNAME environment variable is set, it is used as the prefix.

	  (3)  Otherwise, the user's login name is used.

Options
       -c	   Causes to attempt to create a regular file using the generated (or created) name string. If file creation is successful, a zero
		   length file is created with access permissions derived from the process's file mode creation mask, see No attempt  is  made	to
		   create  a file if the length of the generated (or created) name string exceeds 1023 characters. It is the user's responsibility
		   to remove files created by use of this option.

       -d directory_name
		   Causes directory_name to be used as the directory portion of the pathname. In this case,  directory_name  is  used  instead	of
		   TMPDIR and

       -p prefix   Causes  the string prefix to be used as the file's prefix.  It is used instead of LOGNAM and the user's login name. If the pre-
		   fix is longer the 249 characters, it will be silently truncated to that length before the concatenation of the suffix.

Environmental Variables
       LOGNAME	   When the -p prefix option is not specified, the value of this variable is used as the prefix of the filename, if it exists.

       TMPDIR	   When the -d directory_name option is not specified, the value of this variable is used instead of

Restrictions
       If the user does not have write permission in the directory specified, and error message is reported and is used in its place.  The  entire
       path name can not exceed 1023 characters, and the temporary file name can not exceed 255 characters. If the generated file name is too long
       it is truncated to fit before the suffix is added.

See Also
																	 mktemp(1)