On 5/18/2011 14:50, Florian Pesth wrote:
> Sure that there is no call for saying "Lock this file definitely" and the
> other lock mechanisms are just kept for POSIX compability?

Yes. The basic problem is that none of the lock mechanisms actually work 
reliably in all situations.

> I think this is also older...

One problem is that there's at least 3 ways of doing this in Linux, all 
three relatively recent.

One would give you a signal when a file in the one single directory you're 
watching (maybe just the cwd) changed. Not very handy except for the 
refreshing of a window in a file manager.

One would do some sort of something or other with messages sent to you 
somehow I forget when anything under a particular file tree changed, IIRC. 
It was poor because, IIRC, you had to block to wait for the messages or 
something.

The latest one, done right, lets you open a file handle, writing to the 
handle says what you're waiting to see change, reading the (selectable) 
handle lets you know when something there changed and what it was.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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