Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19971217064427.007b8eb0@yacker.xiotech.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 06:44:27 -0600
To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
From: Randy Maas <randym AT acm DOT org>
Subject: Re: Q?on sharing/locking files 
Cc: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il, Vik DOT Heyndrickx AT rug DOT ac DOT be
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Good morning,

Let me clarify some things which I muddled.  The "lockf" procedure I sent
to Vik probably won't work under DJGPP for a bit.  It tries to translate
the request into fcntl calls to use those locking mechanism.  The reasoning
for that: it is clean (in the sense it is simple and straightforward),
mildly portable, and under DJGPP is likely to hook to a fsext.   I really
do plan on submitting it, once it works and the other stuff is off my
plate.  Or distributing it as an add-on. 

Of course, fcntl needs to be patched to handle the F_LCK commands, probably
to lock/unlock.  I got started on that for the pipe/fifo emulator, but as I
said: first things first.   I also sent to Vik (and certainly everyone is
welcome to it) a routine which tries to use lock/unlock to see if those
calls are even useful (ie, is share loaded and responding?); I haven't
extensively tested it, so no guarantees.  Basically my plan is that fcntl
would only use lock/unlock if they were already marked as "useful."  The
first attempt to lock/unlock/test would trigger the useful test.

>> Isn't there anything Emacs doesn't have?
it's own replacement for /vmunix   8-(

Randy "I miss unix" Maas
randym AT acm DOT org