Description of problem:

The script in question has on line 34

tmpdir=`mktemp -d ${TMP-/tmp}/$progname.XXXXXX`

So far so good but starting with line 94 there is this:

     94 mkdir "$tmpdir" || {
     95   echo "$progname: failed to create temp directory." >&2
     96   exit 1
     97 }

and that obviously terminates as "$tmpdir" already exists created
by 'mktemp'.  For an added attraction it also leaves behind "$tmpdir"
as a regular exit is not trapped.

There four lines are preceded by a comment
# before we create the tmpdir, set trap for cleanup
followed by a corresponding 'trap' statement (which traps only
some signals).

Replacing on line 94 'mkdir' with 'mkdir -p' makes this script
to work but clearly  "$tmpdir" creation was supposed to happen
after that 'trap' and not much earlier.  The breakage looks
like a result of some "fix" for an unsafe making of "$tmpdir".

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
tetex-3.0-39.fc7 and earlier too