Create a temp file with a specific extension using php

Question

How do I create a temporary file with a specified extension in php. I came across tempnam() but using it the extension can't be specified.

Answer 1

This might simulate mkstemp() (see http://linux.die.net/man/3/mkstemp) a bit, achieving what you want to do:

function mkstemp( $template ) {
  $attempts = 238328; // 62 x 62 x 62
  $letters  = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";
  $length   = strlen($letters) - 1;

  if( mb_strlen($template) < 6 || !strstr($template, 'XXXXXX') )
    return FALSE;

  for( $count = 0; $count < $attempts; ++$count) {
    $random = "";

    for($p = 0; $p < 6; $p++) {
      $random .= $letters[mt_rand(0, $length)];
    }

    $randomFile = str_replace("XXXXXX", $random, $template);

    if( !($fd = @fopen($randomFile, "x+")) )
      continue;

    return $fd;
  }

  return FALSE;
}

So you could do:

if( ($f = mkstemp("test-XXXXXX.txt")) ) {
  fwrite($f, "test\n");
  fclose($f);
}