.\" 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 17:46:05 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
.TH TMPNAM 3  "April 3, 1993" "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
tmpnam \- create a name for a temporary file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <stdio.h>
.sp
.BI "char *tmpnam(char *" s );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The \fBtmpnam()\fP function generates a unique temporary filename 
using the path prefix \fIP_tmpdir\fP defined in \fI<stdio.h>\fP.  
If the argument \fIs\fP is NULL, \fBtmpnam()\fP returns the address 
of an internal static area which holds the filename, which is 
overwritten by subsequent calls to \fBtmpnam()\fP.  If \fIs\fP is 
not NULL, the filename is returned in \fIs\fP.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
The \fBtmpnam()\fP function returns a pointer to the unique temporary 
filename, or NULL if a unique name cannot be generated.
.SH "ERRORS"
.TP
.B EEXIST
Unable to generate a unique filename.
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
SVID 3, POSIX, BSD 4.3, ISO 9899
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR mktemp "(3), " mkstemp "(3), " tempnam "(3), " tmpfile (3)