.\" Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (david@prism.demon.co.uk)
.\"
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.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
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.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
.\" permission notice identical to this one.
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.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
.\" the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
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.\"
.\" References consulted:
.\"     Linux libc source code
.\"     Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
.\"     386BSD man pages
.\" Modified Sat Jul 24 17:46:57 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
.\" Modified 2001-11-17, aeb
.TH TMPFILE 3  2008-07-14 "" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
tmpfile \- create a temporary file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <stdio.h>
.sp
.B FILE *tmpfile(void);
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR tmpfile ()
function opens a unique temporary file
in binary read/write (w+b) mode.
The file will be automatically deleted when it is closed or the
program terminates.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
The
.BR tmpfile ()
function returns a stream descriptor, or NULL if
a unique filename cannot be generated or the unique file cannot be
opened.
In the latter case, \fIerrno\fP is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EACCES
Search permission denied for directory in file's path prefix.
.TP
.B EEXIST
Unable to generate a unique filename.
.TP
.B EINTR
The call was interrupted by a signal.
.TP
.B EMFILE
Too many file descriptors in use by the process.
.TP
.B ENFILE
Too many files open in the system.
.TP
.B ENOSPC
There was no room in the directory to add the new filename.
.TP
.B EROFS
Read-only file system.
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
SVr4, 4.3BSD, C89, C99, SUSv2, POSIX.1-2001.
.SH NOTES
POSIX.1-2001 specifies:
an error message may be written to \fIstdout\fP if the stream
cannot be opened.
.LP
The standard does not specify the directory that
.BR tmpfile ()
will use.
Glibc will try the path prefix \fIP_tmpdir\fP defined
in \fI<stdio.h>\fP, and if that fails the directory \fI/tmp\fP.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR exit (3),
.BR mkstemp (3),
.BR mktemp (3),
.BR tempnam (3),
.BR tmpnam (3)
.SH COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.44 of the Linux
.I man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.