Re: [gentoo-user] stuff accumulating in /tmp

[Iain Buchanan]

On Tue, 2008-01-22 at 04:35 +0100, Erik wrote:
> Alan McKinnon skrev:
> > On Sunday 20 January 2008, Philip Webb wrote:
> >
> >> 080119 Kevin wrote:
> >>
> >>> To automatically wipe /tmp upon reboot,
> >>> change  WIPE_TMP  to "yes" in  /etc/conf.d/bootmisc
> >>>
> >> Thanks: I will consider the implications.
> >>
> > There aren't any implications. By *definition*, the contents of /tmp
> > should not be relied on to survive a reboot or even subsequent
> > invocations of the same program.
> >
> What definition? What if there is a script that calls a program and
> redirects the output to /tmp and then calls another program that uses
> the ouput? Would that be wrong? Does the script count as a program or
> each command separately? See this example:
> cat $(find -name regexps) > /tmp/all_regexps
> egrep -f /tmp/all_regexps some_file

FHS defines that /tmp should not be used to store anything between
reboots, but that /var/tmp should be used in this case.

POSIX defines that /tmp cannot be relied upon between successive
instances of the same program:

/tmp
     A directory made available for applications that need a place to create 
temporary files. Applications shall be allowed to create files in this 
directory, but shall not assume that such files are preserved between 
invocations of the application.

There is currently a looong discussion (flame?) going on about this on
gentoo-dev:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/54402

which quotes the appropriate "standards".

HTH,
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

Emperor Palpatine:
	Soon the Rebellion will be crushed and young Skywalker
	will be one of us!

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