Question

I get this warning saying that tmpnam is dangerous, but I would prefer to use it, since it can be used as is in Windows as well as Linux. I was wondering why it would be considered dangerous (I’m guessing it’s because of the potential for misuse rather than it actually not working properly).

Answer 1

From tmpnam manpage :

The tmpnam() function generates a different string each time it is called, up to TMP_MAX times. If it is called more than TMP_MAX times, the behavior is implementation defined.

Although tmpnam() generates names that are difficult to guess, it is nevertheless possible that between the time that tmpnam() returns a pathname, and the time that the program opens it, another program might create that pathname using open(2), or create it as a symbolic link. This can lead to security holes. To avoid such possibilities, use the open(2) O_EXCL flag to open the pathname. Or better yet, use mkstemp(3) or tmpfile(3).

Mktemp really create the file, so you are assured it works, whereas tmpnam returns a name, possibly already existing.