[NTLUG:Discuss] Flock file hanging around

[Stuart Johnston]

On 1/28/2013 2:20 PM, Steve Litt wrote:
> Let me ask you a question: What's the harm if /var/lock/mylock remains
> afterward? From my understanding, after the lock terminates, the file
> is just another file. And if something else locks it, it re-assumes its
> role as a lockfile.

Avoiding clutter, I guess?

There is a nifty trick in Perl where a script locks itself by using the 
internal file handle, DATA.  This only works when a script always runs 
from the same location but it avoid the extra file.


use Fcntl qw(:flock);
flock(DATA, LOCK_EX | LOCK_NB) or die 'Cannot lock';

#do stuff...

__DATA__