Re^3: File Locking plus delete Lockfile question

Why are you afraid of having hundreds of tiny files?

However, if you have that many different critical sections, you might want to consider alternatives. Shared memory, or just use a transactional database to keep track of your number of customers.

Comment on Re^3: File Locking plus delete Lockfile question

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Re^4: File Locking plus delete Lockfile question by rovf (Priest) on Feb 12, 2009 at 15:32 UTC
Why are you afraid of having hundreds of tiny files? Maybe just irrational sense of orderliness. Thinking of a few hundred files per week added in a directory, extrapolated to an estimated lifespan of the application over several years, just makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't see how shared memory would help in this respect, but maybe I just don't have enough experience with it on Windows. In particular, I don't see what advantage I gain in getting added up dozens of shared memory handles per day, opposed to files (except maybe that shared memory disappears in case the system is rebooted). I was thinking also to use some database, but this seemed to me too heavyweight for what I wanted to achieve. But thanks for the suggestions. -- Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>	[reply]
Re^5: File Locking plus delete Lockfile question by JavaFan (Canon) on Feb 12, 2009 at 16:09 UTC
I was thinking also to use some database, but this seemed to me too heavyweight for what I wanted to achieve. I think that anything that's too heavyweight for your filesystem is worth a database. ;-) But you mentioned you work on Windows. I've no idea what the semantics on Windows are - the sequence of events I envisioned is for Unix. Can you even delete an open file on Windows?	[reply]