On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:33:49 +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote: > On 2008-01-14 23:50:35 +0000, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > I tend to use fcntl because it is NFS safe and when the program dies > for whatever reason (even kill -9, which is not trappable to explicitly > remove the lock), the lock disappears. Another very important advantage > (this is sometimes necessary) is that NFS cache problems are avoided on > the locked file. But depending on the context, one doesn't always want > the lock to disappear if the program couldn't do the necessary clean-up > first (there are other ways to deal with that, though).
Thanks. It looks as if I'll be using fcntl locking. And I believe that lockf is implemented as a front end to fcntl, from what I've heard, though as far as I know its specification doesn't require it to be implemented this was. Someone has asked me if doing it this way is compatible with Windows. I have no idea. I haven't programmed for Windows in ages. > > I also use symlink locking, which is also NFS safe, mainly in my shell > scripts, because this is quite easy in this context. And one can put > interesting information in the symlink contents (the symlink doesn't > have to point to a real file). See what Firefox does for instance (the > lock is in the profile). > What is symlink locking? If firefox uses it that probably accounts for the weird links I see around now and then. It does seem to unlock upon killall, too. Betcha it won't work in Windows :-) -- hendrik > -- > Vincent Lefèvre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/> > 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/> > Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon) > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]