lockfile type locks

[Chip Salzenberg]

According to peter at ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva):
>In practice, storing a PID in the file and doing a kill() on it may give
>false positives, but they're usually harmless.

Quite.  However, the spurious removal problem continues -- how do I
know that a correct negative means that I can remove the file *now*?
In general, I can't.

>The problem with kernel locking is all the incompatible "standards".

It's almost universally available in *some* form.  The point is to use
any locking method that automatically notices when a process dies, so
the kernel has to get involved at some point.  If you have to use
#ifdefs, well, that's life.
-- 
Chip, the new t.b answer man      <chip at tct.uucp>, <uunet!ateng!tct!chip>