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How can I lock a file?

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How can I lock a file?

Perl's builtin flock() function (see the perlfunc manpage for details) will call flock(2) if that exists, fcntl(2) if it doesn't (on perl version 5.004 and later), and lockf(3) if neither of the two previous system calls exists. On some systems, it may even use a different form of native locking. Here are some gotchas with Perl's flock():

Produces a fatal error if none of the three system calls (or their close equivalent) exists.
lockf(3) does not provide shared locking, and requires that the filehandle be open for writing (or appending, or read/writing).
Some versions of flock() can't lock files over a network (e.g. on NFS file systems), so you'd need to force the use of fcntl(2) when you build Perl. See the flock entry of the perlfunc manpage, and the INSTALL file in the source distribution for information on building Perl to do this.

The CPAN module File::Lock offers similar functionality and (if you have dynamic loading) won't require you to rebuild perl if your flock() can't lock network files.

Source: Perl FAQ: Files and Formats
Copyright: Copyright (c) 1997 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.

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