(m4.info.gz) Maketemp

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 12.5 Making temporary files
 ===========================
 
 Commands specified to `syscmd' or `esyscmd' might need a temporary
 file, for output or for some other purpose.  There is a builtin macro,
 `maketemp', for making temporary file names:
 
  -- Builtin: maketemp (TEMPLATE)
      Expands to a name of a new, empty file, made from the string
      TEMPLATE, which should end with the string `XXXXXX'.  The six `X'
      characters are then replaced with random data, in order to make
      the file name unique.
 
      The macro `maketemp' is recognized only with parameters.
 
      maketemp(`/tmp/fooXXXXXX')
      =>/tmp/fooa07346
 
    Traditional implementations of `m4' replaced the trailing `X'
 sequence with the process id, without creating the file; meaning you
 only get one result no matter how many times you use maketemp on the
 same string.  As of this release, POSIX is considering the addition of
 a new macro `mkstemp' that behaves like GNU `maketemp', so a future
 version of GNU M4 may have changes in this area.
 

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