MKTEMP(1) User Commands MKTEMP(1) NAME mktemp - create a temporary file or directory SYNOPSIS mktemp [OPTION]... [TEMPLATE] DESCRIPTION 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 Written by Jim Meyering and Eric Blake. REPORTING BUGS GNU coreutils online help: Report any translation bugs to COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later . This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. SEE ALSO mkstemp(3), mkdtemp(3), mktemp(3) Full documentation or available locally via: info '(coreutils) mktemp invocation' GNU coreutils 9.5 March 2024 MKTEMP(1)