redhat man page for tmpnam

TMPNAM(3)						     Linux Programmer's Manual							 TMPNAM(3)

NAME
       tmpnam - create a name for a temporary file

SYNOPSIS
       #include <stdio.h>

       char *tmpnam(char *s);

DESCRIPTION
       The  tmpnam()  function	returns  a pointer to a string that is a valid filename, and such that a file with this name did not exist at some
       point in time, so that naive programmers may think it a suitable name for a temporary file. If the argument s is NULL this name	is  gener-
       ated in an internal static buffer and may be overwritten by the next call to tmpnam().  If s is not NULL, the name is copied to the charac-
       ter array (of length at least L_tmpnam) pointed at by s and the value s is returned in case of success.

       The path name that is created, has a directory prefix P_tmpdir.	(Both L_tmpnam and P_tmpdir  are  defined  in  <stdio.h>,  just  like  the
       TMP_MAX mentioned below.)

RETURN VALUE
       The tmpnam() function returns a pointer to a unique temporary filename, or NULL if a unique name cannot be generated.

ERRORS
       No errors are defined.

NOTES
       Portable applications that use threads cannot call tmpnam() with NULL parameter if either _POSIX_THREAD_SAFE_FUNCTIONS or _POSIX_THREADS is
       defined.

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

BUGS
       Never use this function. Use mkstemp(3) instead.

CONFORMING TO
       SVID 2, POSIX, BSD 4.3, ISO 9899

SEE ALSO
       mktemp(3), mkstemp(3), tempnam(3), tmpfile(3)

								    1999-06-14								 TMPNAM(3)