TL;DR

tempfile is deprecated and mktemp should be used instead.

After an upgrade, I was starting to see this message when running one little shell wrapper program:

WARNING: tempfile is deprecated; consider using mktemp instead.

This was a bit odd for me, because I definitely remember checking the man page for tempfile and actually reading:

tempfile creates a temporary file in a safe manner.

Alas, what I did not check, at the end of the very same man page, was this:

tempfile is deprecated; you should use mktemp(1) instead.

So well, here’s the TIL: use mktemp instead of tempfile.

How come you all knew it and never told me?!? 😁

Stay safe everybody!