LockFile() and UnlockFile() are working

[Paul McNett]

Hi John K. Hohm, 

On Friday 21 March 2003 12:15 pm, John K. Hohm wrote:

> > This resolution will make a ton of business apps based on desktop
> > database software that much closer to working.

> I'm not so sure.  I expect most database software depends on the
> mandatory nature of LockFile(), i.e. that a ReadFile() or WriteFile()
> from another process on a locked region fails with ERROR_LOCK_VIOLATION. 

Yep, you seem to be correct.


> Typically, one process will LockFile() an area, then update on-disk
> structures in such a way that another process reading during the update
> would get confused were it not for ReadFile() refusing to read the locked
> bytes.  Note that the reading process does not LockFile() to read, it
> just tries ReadFile() and handles its failure (typically by waiting and
> trying again later).
>
> For database software that uses read/write locks via LockFileEx(), the
> standard Unix advisory lock semantics are just fine, and those patches
> are indeed the ticket.  However, advisory locking is generally more
> difficult to manage, and LockFileEx() is not supported on Windows
> 95/98/Me, so I doubt many apps use it.

I just confirmed... while locking seems to work if two instances of Visual 
Foxpro are running on Wine on the same machine, it DOES NOT work over the 
network.  I had one instance on Wine and one instance on WinNT.  Both 
instances were interacting with the same table on a third machine.  The two 
instances of Visual FoxPro did not respect each other's locks.  Bummer.  
Big bummer.


> From what I can tell, mandatory locking on Linux involves tricks like
> using a special mount option, and setting the SGID bit of the file to be
> locked before the locking process starts; I'm not sure which other Unixen
> even support it.

So... chances of this ever getting implemented on Wine are, in your opinion, 
pretty slim?  If so that's too bad, because I saw a great possibility of 
porting lots of legacy business apps over to Linux using Wine.  There are, 
as I said before, a ton of apps out there built on desktop database 
software...  bummer.


-- 
Paul McNett - p at ulmcnett.com
Hollister, California, USA