I implemented this idea, but ran into management issues with the lock file. (The lock file was not deleted properly, it was overwritten, etc.)

Neither of these situations is a problem. The lockfile is only there to be locked. If it is absent, then there is no lock. If it is present a lock should be attempted. The contents of the file (if any) are irrelevant.

You have presented an alternative which is, by comparison, brittle. It relies on shelling out a lot and we know from experience that this can lead to problems.

If managing your own lockfiles with flock is too tricky then why not simply use Script::Singleton as stevieb suggested here? That's a simple, reliable solution.

🦛

In reply to Re: Ensure Only One Instance of Your Script is Running... with 'ps -ef' ? by hippo
in thread Ensure Only One Instance of Your Script is Running... with 'ps -ef' ? by redapplesonly

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.