tempname(1) tempname(1)
NAME
tempname - create a unique temporary file, directory, or unused file-
name for use by shell scripts
SYNOPSIS
tempname [-c(reate_not)] [-d dirname] [-h(elp)] [-n(o_random_portion)]
[-q(uiet)] [-s suffix] [-w(ildcard)] [-v(erbose)] [-D(irectory)] file-
name_prefix
DESCRIPTION
tempname creates a unique temporary file, directory, or unused filename
for use by shell scripts with permissions 0600 or 0700, as appropriate.
OPTIONS
-h Print help and quit.
-c Do not create a temporary file or directory, but only print the
name. It becomes the responsibility of the user to create this
file. Be warned. Using this option is unsafe.
-d Specify the directory in which the temporary file will be cre-
ated. If this option is not specified, the program will attempt
to locate a writeable temporary directory in the following
order: "$TMPDIR", "$TEMP", "$TMP", "/tmp", "/var/tmp", and ".".
If no writeable directory can be found, the program will abort.
Directories that contain one or more space characters will be
skipped in this search.
-n Return the filename with no random portion attached. Also, no
file will be created as per the -c option. This is typically
used to provide a string against which the script writer can
grep or something like that.
-w Return the filename with a wildcard pattern instead of a random
portion. Also, no file will be created as per the -c option.
This is typically used to provide a string against which the
script writer can perform wildcard searches.
-D Create a directory instead of a file. The directory will have
permissions 0700. This option will override the -c option.
-s suffix
Attach the specified suffix to the filename.
-v Verbose output. The program will complain about any search
directories that it finds that are not writeable.
-q Quiet output. The program will never complain about unwriteable
directories, even when the user has specified an unwriteable
directory using the -d option.
HISTORY
This utility was originally intended as an alternative to the tempfile
program that is part of Debian's "debianutils" package. The key reason
for developing this new utility was the fact that some programs out
there insist on particular extensions in the filenames. At the time
tempname was written, the version of tempfile found in Debian did not
provide filename extensions on the temporary files it created.
Debian's tempfile utility subsequently had the --suffix option added,
but tempname has been preserved because of the usefulness of some of
the other options.
Another utility that provides similar functionality to the tempfile
program is mktemp by Todd Miller, which inspired the -D option, though
no code was actually copied from mktemp. And interestingly, GNU core-
utils added a mktemp utility with version 6.10 in 2008.
The logic for safely creating a temporary file or directory was derived
from the tempname routine in glibc-2.6.1 (and subsequent updated there-
after).
COPYRIGHT
Original tempname routine Copyright 1991-2020 Free Software Foundation,
Inc. Derived tempname program Copyright (C) 2004-2021 by Brian Lind-
holm.
This program is free software; you can use it, redistribute it, and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as pub-
lished by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your
option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER-
CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public License for more details.
littleutils 2021 Jan 15 tempname(1)
littleutils 1.2.4 - Generated Wed Mar 31 18:17:15 CDT 2021