.\" Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (david@prism.demon.co.uk)
.\" May be distributed under the GNU General Public License
.\" References consulted:
.\"     Linux libc source code
.\"     Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
.\"     386BSD man pages
.\" Modified Sat Jul 24 17:47:26 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
.TH TEMPNAM 3  "April 3, 1993" "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
tempnam \- create a name for a temporary file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <stdio.h>
.sp
.BI "char *tempnam(const char *" dir ", const char *" pfx );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The \fBtempnam()\fP function generates a unique temporary filename
using up to five characters of \fIpfx\fP, if it is not NULL.  The
directory to place the file is searched for in the following order:-
.sp
.RS
.IP a)
The directory specified by the environment variable \fITMPDIR\fP,
if it is writable.
.IP b)
The directory specified by the argument \fIdir\fP, if it is not NULL.
.IP c)
The directory specified by \fIP_tmpdir\fP.
.IP d)
The directory \fI\\tmp\fP.
.RE
.sp
The storage for the filename is allocated by \fBmalloc()\fP, and so
can be free'd by the function \fBfree()\fP.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
The \fBtempnam()\fP function returns a pointer to the unique temporary 
filename, or NULL if a unique filename cannot be generated.
.SH "ERRORS"
.TP
.B EEXIST
Unable to generate a unique filename.
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
SVID 3, BSD 4.3
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR mktemp "(3), " mkstemp "(3), " tmpnam "(3), " tmpfile (3)