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[thirdparty/man-pages.git] / man3 / mkdtemp.3

.\" Copyright 2001 John Levon <moz@compsoc.man.ac.uk>
.\" Based on mkstemp(3), Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (david@prism.demon.co.uk)
.\" and GNU libc documentation
.\"
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.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
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.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
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.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
.\" the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
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.\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
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.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
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.TH MKDTEMP 3  2010-09-15 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
mkdtemp \- create a unique temporary directory
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <stdlib.h>
.sp
.BI "char *mkdtemp(char *" template );
.fi
.sp
.in -4n
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
.BR feature_test_macros (7)):
.in
.sp
.BR mkdtemp ():
.br
.ad l
.RS 4
.PD 0
_BSD_SOURCE
.br
|| /* Since glibc 2.10: */
.RS 4
(_POSIX_C_SOURCE\ >=\ 200809L || _XOPEN_SOURCE\ >=\ 700)
.ad
.PD
.RE
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR mkdtemp ()
function generates a uniquely named temporary
directory from \fItemplate\fP.
The last six characters of \fItemplate\fP
must be XXXXXX and these are replaced with a string that makes the
directory name unique.
The directory is then created with
permissions 0700.
Since it will be modified,
.I template
must not be a string constant, but should be declared as a character array.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
The
.BR mkdtemp ()
function returns a pointer to the modified template
string on success, and NULL on failure, in which case
.I errno
is set appropriately.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EINVAL
The last six characters of \fItemplate\fP were not XXXXXX.
Now \fItemplate\fP is unchanged.
.PP
Also see
.BR mkdir (2)
for other possible values for \fIerrno\fP.
.SH VERSIONS
Available since glibc 2.1.91.
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
POSIX.1-2008.
This function is present on the BSDs.
.\" As at 2006, this function is being considered for a revision of POSIX.1
.\" Also in NetBSD 1.4.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR mkdir (2),
.BR mkstemp (3),
.BR mktemp (3),
.BR tempnam (3),
.BR tmpfile (3),
.BR tmpnam (3)