lockf/locking

[Joshua Stein]

There has been a couple of postings regarding the two calls locking() and
lockf(). Since I've been nipped at by these I thought I'd give the little
illumination I gained in the process.

A small history lesson:

The 7300/3b1/unix-pc was developed by the folks at Convergent Technologies
for ATT. This explains much of the weirdness in the system (this is not a knock
on the system. I use it and love?? it) if you know something of Convergent's
history (I won't elucidate). In any case, I developed software on a CT
Megaframe (may god forgive me) and later that software was ported to an Arete
(Arix) machine. Which is when lockf()/locking() became an issue. Locking() is a
purely CT call. The "generic" (SVID?) call is lockf(). What's the difference?
If I remember correctly just the value of a flag. But it meant ifdef'ing some
sections of code and conditionally compiling for each box. Oh, I don't
remember which flag was involved but why not use the SVID version and save the
pain ;-).
-- 
							   __
Joshua Stein	Pacific Bell		"Neat Stuff!!"	 / --) koo koo ka choo
the usual generic disclaimer goes here		        /\ ) )
(415) 823-2411 uucp:{ihnp4,dual}!phyf!josh      	|   \/ \