Mktemp -- create temporary file-directory

Note: RHEL 5 does not have --tmpdir option.

mktemp(1) create temporary file-directory - Linux man page

mktemp [OPTION]... [TEMPLATE] 

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.

-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 slash. This option is implied if TEMPLATE does not end in X.

--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.

-p DIR

use DIR as a prefix; implies -t [deprecated]

-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

Written by Jim Meyering and Eric Blake.

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20200520 : The mktemp Command Tutorial With Examples For Beginners ( May 20, 2020 , www.ostechnix.com )

Old News ;-)

[May 20, 2020] The mktemp Command Tutorial With Examples For Beginners

May 20, 2020 | www.ostechnix.com

Mktemp is part of GNU coreutils package. So don't bother with installation. We will see some practical examples now.

To create a new temporary file, simply run:

$ mktemp

You will see an output like below:

/tmp/tmp.U0C3cgGFpk

As you see in the output, a new temporary file with random name "tmp.U0C3cgGFpk" is created in /tmp directory. This file is just an empty file.

You can also create a temporary file with a specified suffix. The following command will create a temporary file with ".txt" extension:

$ mktemp --suffix ".txt"
/tmp/tmp.sux7uKNgIA.txt

How about a temporary directory? Yes, it is also possible! To create a temporary directory, use -d option.

$ mktemp -d

This will create a random empty directory in /tmp folder.

Sample output:

/tmp/tmp.PE7tDnm4uN

All files will be created with u+rw permission, and directories with u+rwx , minus umask restrictions. In other words, the resulting file will have read and write permissions for the current user, but no permissions for the group or others. And the resulting directory will have read, write and executable permissions for the current user, but no permissions for groups or others.

You can verify the file permissions using "ls" command:

$ ls -al /tmp/tmp.U0C3cgGFpk
-rw------- 1 sk sk 0 May 14 13:20 /tmp/tmp.U0C3cgGFpk

Verify the directory permissions using "ls" command:

$ ls -ld /tmp/tmp.PE7tDnm4uN
drwx------ 2 sk sk 4096 May 14 13:25 /tmp/tmp.PE7tDnm4uN

---

Suggested read:

• How To Create Directories From A Text File In Linux

---

Create temporary files or directories with custom names using mktemp command

As I already said, all files and directories are created with a random file names. We can also create a temporary file or directory with a custom name. To do so, simply add at least 3 consecutive 'X's at the end of the file name like below.

$ mktemp ostechnixXXX
ostechnixq70

Similarly, to create directory, just run:

$ mktemp -d ostechnixXXX
ostechnixcBO

Please note that if you choose a custom name, the files/directories will be created in the current working directory, not /tmp location . In this case, you need to manually clean up them.

Also, as you may noticed, the X's in the file name are replaced with random characters. You can however add any suffix of your choice.

For instance, I want to add "blog" at the end of the filename. Hence, my command would be:

$ mktemp ostechnixXXX --suffix=blog
ostechnixZuZblog

Now we do have the suffix "blog" at the end of the filename.

If you don't want to create any file or directory, you can simply perform a dry run like below.

$ mktemp -u
/tmp/tmp.oK4N4U6rDG

For help, run:

$ mktemp --help

Why do we actually need mktemp?

You might wonder why do we need "mktemp" while we can easily create empty files using "touch filename" command. The mktemp command is mainly used for creating temporary files/directories with random name. So, we don't need to bother figuring out the names. Since mktemp randomizes the names, there won't be any name collision. Also, mktemp creates files safely with permission 600(rw) and directories with permission 700(rwx), so the other users can't access it. For more details, check man pages.

$ man mktemp

Recommended Links

Softpanorama Recommended

The mktemp Command Tutorial With Examples For Beginners

Top articles

Sites

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

Last modified: May, 21, 2020