mktemp(1) — Linux manual page

MKTEMP(1)                     User Commands                     MKTEMP(1)

NAME         top

       mktemp - create a temporary file or directory

SYNOPSIS         top

       mktemp [OPTION]... [TEMPLATE]

DESCRIPTION         top

       Create a temporary file or directory, safely, and print its name.
       TEMPLATE must contain at least 3 consecutive 'X's in last
       component.  If TEMPLATE is not specified, use tmp.XXXXXXXXXX, and
       --tmpdir is implied.  Files are created u+rw, and directories
       u+rwx, minus umask restrictions.

       -d, --directory
              create a directory, not a file

       -u, --dry-run
              do not create anything; merely print a name (unsafe)

       -q, --quiet
              suppress diagnostics about file/dir-creation failure

       --suffix=SUFF
              append SUFF to TEMPLATE; SUFF must not contain a slash.
              This option is implied if TEMPLATE does not end in X

       -p DIR, --tmpdir[=DIR]
              interpret TEMPLATE relative to DIR; if DIR is not
              specified, use $TMPDIR if set, else /tmp.  With this
              option, TEMPLATE must not be an absolute name; unlike with
              -t, TEMPLATE may contain slashes, but mktemp creates only
              the final component

       -t     interpret TEMPLATE as a single file name component,
              relative to a directory: $TMPDIR, if set; else the
              directory specified via -p; else /tmp [deprecated]

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
              output version information and exit

AUTHOR         top

       Written by Jim Meyering and Eric Blake.

REPORTING BUGS         top

       GNU coreutils online help:
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to
       <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+:
       GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO         top

       mkstemp(3), mkdtemp(3), mktemp(3)

       Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/mktemp>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) mktemp invocation'

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the coreutils (basic file, shell and text
       manipulation utilities) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  This page was obtained
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GNU coreutils 9.7               April 2025                      MKTEMP(1)

Pages that refer to this page: mkdtemp(3),  mktemp(3)

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