mktemp(1)

mktemp1

Create a temporary file or directory

Usage

mktemp [OPTION] ... [TEMPLATE]

Overview

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

Releases

17 releases since Debian 1.3 (Bo); the text changed 14 times.

  1. 1.3–2.0
  2. 2.1
  3. 2.2
  4. 3.0
  5. 3.1
  6. 4.0–5.0
  7. 6.0
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. Arch

--directory since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); --dry-run since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); --help since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); --quiet since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); --suffix since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); --tmpdir since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); --version since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); -d since Debian 3.0 (Woody); -p since Debian 3.0 (Woody); -t since Debian 3.0 (Woody).

-V until Debian 5.0 (Lenny).

Author

Written by Jim Meyering and Eric Blake.

Reporting bugs

Report bugs to: <[email protected]>.
Report any translation bugs to: <https://translationproject.org/team/>.
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

From coreutils 9.12-2 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.