flock man page on Ultrix

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flock(2)							      flock(2)

Name
       flock - apply or remove an advisory lock on an open file

Syntax
       #include <sys/file.h>

       #define	 LOCK_SH   1	/* shared lock */
       #define	 LOCK_EX   2	/* exclusive lock */
       #define	 LOCK_NB   4	/* don't block when locking */
       #define	 LOCK_UN   8	/* unlock */

       flock(fd, operation)
       int fd, operation;

Description
       The system call applies or removes an advisory lock on the file associ‐
       ated with the file descriptor, fd.  A lock is applied by specifying  an
       operation parameter that is the inclusive OR of LOCK_SH or LOCK_EX and,
       possibly, LOCK_NB.  To unlock an existing  lock,	 operation  should  be
       LOCK_UN.

       Advisory locks allow cooperating processes to perform consistent opera‐
       tions on files, but do not guarantee consistency;  that	is,  processes
       might still access files without using advisory locks, possibly result‐
       ing in inconsistencies.

       The locking mechanism allows two	 types	of  locks:  shared  locks  and
       exclusive  locks.  At any time, multiple shared locks can be applied to
       a file.	However, multiple exclusive locks,  or	shared	and  exclusive
       locks cannot be applied simultaneously on a file.

       A shared lock can be upgraded to be an exclusive lock, and an exclusive
       lock can become shared, simply by specifying the appropriate lock type.
       This  change  results  in  the previous lock being released and the new
       lock applied. When upgrading, do	 not  include  LOCK_NB	in  operation,
       because	there  is a possibility that other processes have requests for
       locks, or have gained or released a lock.

       Requesting a lock on an object that is already locked  normally	causes
       the  caller  to	blocked until the lock can be acquired.	 If LOCK_NB is
       included in operation, the call is not blocked; instead, the call fails
       and the error EWOULDBLOCK is returned.

       Locks  are  on  files, not file descriptors.  That is, file descriptors
       duplicated through or call do not result in  multiple  instances	 of  a
       lock,  but  rather  multiple references to a single lock.  If a process
       holding a lock on a file forks and the  child  explicitly  unlocks  the
       file, the parent loses its lock.

       Processes blocked awaiting a lock may be awakened by signals.

Return Values
       Zero  is returned if the operation was successful; on an error, a -1 is
       returned and an error code is stored in the global variable, errno.

Diagnostics
       The call fails under the following conditions:

       [EWOULDBLOCK]  The file is locked and the LOCK_NB option was specified.

       [EBADF]	      The argument fd is an invalid descriptor.

       [EINVAL]	      The argument fd refers to an object other than a file.

       [EOPNOTSUPP]   Invalid operation is requested.  The argument fd	refers
		      to a socket.

Restrictions
       File region locking is not supported over NFS.

See Also
       close(2), dup(2), execve(2), fork(2), open(2)

								      flock(2)
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