On Tue, 3 Dec 1996, der Mouse wrote:

> Actually, as written, it doesn't.  The "release first lock and retry"
> when the second lock fails, coupled with a varying backoff interval,
> avoid that danger.

My mistake; of course this is true.  (I'm still wondering what flock()
locking actually gains us, though.)

> > Or do you propose that we "fix" all of those, too?
> 
> Any program that does locking needs attention.  After all, you don't
> want elm to fail to lock against procmail, just because one uses dot
> file locking and the other uses flock()....  (That's a hypothetical
> example; I don't know what locking schemes those two actually use.)

Precisely my point; if they all need attention anyway, why not add dot
locking to them, rather than modify all the NetBSD tools to try to
accomodate them?  I believe both elm and procmail can be configured to
use dot locking already, anyway.  If I recall, it was particularly
important to use procmail-3.11pre4 to avoid problems, though.

--scott