NAME

IO::LockedFile Class - supply object methods for locking files

SYNOPSIS

  use IO::LockedFile;
              
  # create new locked file object. $file will hold a file handle.
  # if the file is already locked, the method will not return until the
  # file is unlocked 
  my $file = new IO::LockedFile(">locked1.txt");

  # when we close the file - it become unlocked.
  $file->close();

  # if we delete the object, the file is automatically unlocked and 
  # closed.
  $file = undef;

DESCRIPTION

The IO::LockedFile class gives us the same interface of the IO::File class to files with the unique difference that those files are locked using the flock mechanism.

If during the running of the process, the process crashed - the file will be automatically unlocked. Actually - if the IO::LockedFile object goes out of scope, the file is automatically closed and unlocked.

CONSTRUCTOR

new ( FILENAME [,MODE [,PERMS]] )

Creates a IO::LockedFile. If it receives any parameters, they are passed to the method open; if the open fails, the object is destroyed. Otherwise, it is returned to the caller.

METHODS

open( FILENAME [,MODE [,PERMS]] )

The file FILENAME will be opened as a locked file, and the object will be the file handle of that opened file. If the file that is opened is locked the method will not return until the file is unlocked. The parameters that should be provided are the same as the parameters that the method open of IO::File accepts. (like ">file.txt" for example).

close()

The file will be closed and unlocked. The method does not return anything.

is_locked( FILENAME )

Will return true if the file is locked. Will return false otherwise.

AUTHOR

Rani Pinchuk, rani@cpan.org

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2001 EM-TECH (www.em-tech.net) & Rani Pinchuk. All rights reserved. This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

IO::File(3)