in reply to using Email to Perl to append to a changelog.txt, html, or .xls?

I avoided (but did not solve) the file lock issue on a project by coding a script to access a POP3 mailbox, and using cron to control execution. The mailbox was checked once every 30 minutes with a script that ran for 30 seconds, so simultaneous file access was high unlikely--but not impossible.
  • Comment on Re: using Email to Perl to append to a changelog.txt, html, or .xls?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: using Email to Perl to append to a changelog.txt, html, or .xls?
by freddo411 (Chaplain) on Nov 22, 2004 at 18:37 UTC
    The mailbox was checked once every 30 minutes with a script that ran for 30 seconds, so simultaneous file access was high unlikely--but not impossible.
    Hmmm. If you are 'reading' a mailbox, as a mail client might, then it seems you wouldn't run into the need to lock the file.

    I'd would approach the problem like so: 

    my $mboxfhandle;

# open $mboxfhandle for readonly

my @mbox = <$mboxfhandle>;  # Let's use lots of memory

# rest of the process ...

    [download]
    Seems like this would catch each new message, and not conflict with any incoming messages.

    ( on further reflections, I imagine that a mail client must be able to mark messages as read, which would involve a write ... )

    -------------------------------------
    Nothing is too wonderful to be true
    -- Michael Faraday

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
      I meant that simultaneous file access upon the *output file* was high unlikely--but not impossible--because the script should run for only 30 seconds every 30 minutes.
[reply]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom