what is the 'l' permission?

[Brandon S. Allbery]

As quoted from <951 at vsi.COM> by friedl at vsi.COM (Stephen J. Friedl):
+---------------
> (re: the "l" mode bit in SVR3.2 and mandatory/advisory file locking)
| 
| I'm speculating on this part, but I guess that setting the `l' mode
| is required because the vast majority of programs don't use locking,
| and the overhead required on each read/write call is probably too much.
| Setting the lock bit probably enables this checking.
+---------------

No, it's because advisory file locking is the SVR3 standard, but mandatory
file locking was in Xenix.  So UNIX apps use standard file locking and
migrated Xenix apps should set the "l" bit in order to work correctly.

I dunno, the whole thing seems a bit klugey to me.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, comp.sources.misc moderator and one admin of ncoast PA UN*X
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