HELP LOCKF                                       John Williams, Feb 1989

LIB * LOCKF is  a simple  Pop-11  interface to  the C  library  function
lockf, a tool for file locking. The locks created by lockf are  advisory
(they do not affect file  access permissions), and ephemeral (they  only
exist for  the duration  of  the process  that  creates the  lock).  See
MAN * LOCKF for full details.

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1  Procedures defined by LIB LOCKF
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syslockf(device, lock_op, nbytes) -> success_flag            [procedure]
        Applies the  lock operation  lock_op to  the file  described  by
        device (which must be writeable). nbytes specifies the number of
        bytes after the current file pointer  to lock; if 0, the  entire
        file is  locked. The  result success_flag  is true  if the  lock
        operation succeeds;  and  false  if  the  lock  operation  fails
        because the file is already locked by another process. An  error
        is signalled if lock_op fails for any other reason.

        lock_op must be one of the following values:

        Integer     Macro       Function
            0       F_ULOCK     Unlock a previously locked section
            1       F_LOCK      Lock a section
            2       F_TLOCK     Test and lock a section (non-blocking)
            3       F_TEST      Test section for other process' locks

        Note  that  calls  to  syslockf   with  lock_op  =  F_LOCK   are
        uninterruptable. Use syslock if this is a problem.


syslock(device, wait) -> locked                              [procedure]
        Attempts to lock the file described by device. If wait is  true,
        will wait if necessary  till the file is  free. Returns true  if
        the file was succesfully locked, and false otherwise.


sysunlock(device) -> unlocked                                [procedure]
        Attempts to unlock the file described by device, returning  true
        if succesful, false otherwise.


--- C.unix/help/lockf
--- Copyright University of Sussex 1995. All rights reserved.
