Vincent Danen wrote on Wed, Aug 28, 2002 at 06:04:01PM -0600 :
> 
> You're 100% positive on this?  Was it on Mandrake you used 4 X's, or 
> BSD?  I've got 7.2 up in vmware for some security testing and just ran 
> "mktemp file.XXXX" and get the cannot create error, and the manpage 
> indicates 6 X's.

man mktemp on RH 7.1:
     The template may be any file name with some number of `Xs' appended
to it, for example /tmp/temp.XXXX. The trailing `Xs' are replaced with
the current process number and/or a unique letter combination.  The
number of unique file names mktemp can return depends on the number of
`Xs' provided; six `Xs' will result in mktemp testing roughly 26 ** 6
combinations.

However, when you try to do less than 6:
[root@atlantis /root]# mktemp -u fileXXX
Cannot create temp file fileXXX
[root@atlantis /root]# mktemp -u fileXXXXX
Cannot create temp file fileXXXXX
[root@atlantis /root]# mktemp -u fileXXXXXX
fileMdioDs

The interesting thing is what happens when you go more than 6:
[root@atlantis /root]# mktemp -u fileXXXXXXXX
fileXXsswMeG

I think I just remembered backwards (ie I wanted more than 6 but could
only get 6).

> I don't think it changed from 7.2 to cooker (ie. from 6 to 4 and back 
> to 6).

I believe you are right.  This is a RedHat-ism it appears.

Blue skies...                   Todd
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