gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) (12/27/85)
In article <7022@ki4pv.UUCP>, tanner@ki4pv.UUCP (Tanner Andrews) writes: > there's no real > excuse for a read-only prog to need to lock a file if the write-file > prog successfully locks the damned thing anyway. Uh, suppose the readers want a consistent copy of the file? flock(), at least in 4.2BSD, is an *advisory* lock -- it doesn't stop anybody from doing anything with the file except flock() it again. Readers can use shared locks and writers use exclusive locks, for many applications.