From: Nate Eldredge <neldredge AT hmc DOT edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Detecting File in Use?
Date: 24 Apr 2001 16:34:44 -0700
Organization: InterWorld Communications
Lines: 27
Sender: nate AT mercury DOT st DOT hmc DOT edu
Message-ID: <83n195zxbf.fsf@mercury.st.hmc.edu>
References: <q142et86haqtgeileohcgemoni9bctv9mf AT 4ax DOT com> <3ae12439_2 AT rapidnet DOT net> <83snixzxgy DOT fsf AT mercury DOT st DOT hmc DOT edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.st.hmc.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-Trace: nntp1.interworld.net 988155284 55830 134.173.57.219 (24 Apr 2001 23:34:44 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: usenet AT news DOT interworld DOT net
NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 23:34:44 +0000 (UTC)
User-Agent: Gnus/5.0802 (Gnus v5.8.2) Emacs/20.5
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Nate Eldredge <neldredge AT hmc DOT edu> writes:

> richard AT stardate DOT bc DOT ca (Richard Sanders) writes:
> 
> > >How does one know if a file is ALREADY in USE by
> > >some application BEFORE any actual attempt to open
> > >or access that file?
> > 
> > Check out the access(); function.  
> 
> That has nothing to do with it.
> 
> The correct answer is: you can't reliably find out.  lsof would tell
> you whether the file was open, but that could change before you get
> around to actually doing something with it.
> 
> If you need to enforce some kind of sharing between applications,
> you'll need to use file locking in both of them.

Sorry, forgot which newsgroup this was.  (I was thinking of Unix.)  As
far as DJGPP goes, I don't know how you find out.  I don't *think*
access() will do it, but I could be wrong.

-- 

Nate Eldredge
neldredge AT hmc DOT edu