[comp.emacs] Lock/Unlock Buffer?

billf@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Bill F. Faus) (03/24/89)

Anyone know about lock-buffer and unlock-buffer?

I'm running Gnu 18.52 under X11.  There seem to be two undocumented
functions lock-buffer and unlock-buffer.  They are used in files.el
to test whether a file is currently open as a buffer by another user.

I want to know if this is a way of preventing multiple users working
in the same directory from editing the same file at the same time.
(The winner of this contention, is the last person to save their edits.)

The man page to EMACS mentions:

  /usr/local/emacs/lock - holds lock files that are made for 
  all files being modified in EMACS, to prevent simultaneous
  modification of one file by two users.

Sounds great!

But how do I use it?  

Just sign me, Frustrated in Oregon.