NAME

       File::FcntlLock - File locking with fcntl(2)

       This text also documents the following sub-packages:

       File::FcntlLock::XS
       File::FcntlLock::Pure
       File::FcntlLock::Inline

SYNOPSIS

         use File::FcntlLock;

         my $fs = new File::FcntlLock;
         $fs->l_type( F_RDLCK );
         $fs->l_whence( SEEK_CUR );
         $fs->l_start( 100 );
         $fs->l_len( 123 );

         open my $fh, '<', 'file_name' or die "Can't open file: $!\n";
         $fs->lock( $fh, F_SETLK )
             or print "Locking failed: " . $fs->error . "\n";
         $fs->l_type( F_UNLCK );
         $fs->lock( $fh, F_SETLK )
             or print "Unlocking failed: " . $fs->error . "\n";

DESCRIPTION

       File locking in Perl is usually done using the "flock" function.  Unfortunately, this only allows locks
       on whole files and is often implemented in terms of the flock(2) system function which has some
       shortcomings (especially concerning locks on remotely mounted file systems) and slightly different
       behaviour than fcntl(2).

       Using this module file locking via fcntl(2) can be done (obviously, this restricts the use of the module
       to systems that have a fcntl(2) system call). Before a file (or parts of a file) can be locked, an object
       simulating a flock structure, containing information in a binary format to be passed to fcntl(2) for
       locking requests, must be created and its properties set. Afterwards, by calling the lock() method a lock
       can be set and removed or it can be determined if and which process currently holds the lock.

       File::FcntlLock (or its alias File::FcntlLock::XS) uses a shared library, build during installation, to
       call the fcntl(2) system function directly.  If this is unsuitable there are two alternatives,
       File::FcntlLock::Pure and File::FcntlLock::Inline. Both call the Perl "fcntl" function instead and use
       Perl code to assemble and disassemble the structure. For this at some time the (system-dependent) binary
       layout of the flock structure must have been determined via a program written in C. The difference
       between File::FcntlLock::Pure and File::FcntlLock::Inline is that for the former this happened when the
       package is installed while for the latter it is done each time the package is loaded (e.g., with "use").
       Thus, for File::FcntlLock::Inline to work a C compiler must be available. There are some minor
       differences in the functionality and the behaviour on passing the method for locking invalid arguments to
       be described below.

   Creating objects
       "new()"
           To create a new object, representing a flock structure, call new():

             $fs = new File::FcntlLock;

           The object has a number of properties, reflecting the members of the flock structure to be passed to
           fcntl(2) (see below). Per default on object creation the l_type property is set to "F_RDLCK",
           l_whence to "SEEK_SET", and both l_start and l_len to 0, i.e., the settings for a read lock on the
           whole file.

           These defaults can be overruled by passing the new() method a set of key-value pairs to initialize
           the objects properties, e.g. use

             $fs = new File::FcntlLock( l_type   => F_WRLCK,
                                        l_whence => SEEK_SET,
                                        l_start  => 0,
                                        l_len    => 100 );

           if you intend to obtain a write lock for the first 100 bytes of a file.

   Object properties
       Once the object simulating the flock structure has been created the following methods allow to query and,
       in most cases, to also modify its properties.

       "l_type()"
           If called without an argument the method returns the current setting of the lock type, otherwise the
           lock type is set to the argument's value which must be either "F_RDLCK", "F_WRLCK" or "F_UNLCK" (for
           read lock, write lock or unlock).

       "l_whence()"
           This method sets, when called with an argument, the l_whence property of the flock object,
           determining if the l_start value is relative to the start of the file, to the current position in the
           file or to the end of the file. These values are "SEEK_SET", "SEEK_CUR" and "SEEK_END" (also see the
           man page for lseek(2)).  If called with no argument the current value of the property is returned.

       "l_start()"
           Queries or sets the start position (offset) of the lock in the file according to the mode selected by
           the l_whence member. See also the man page for lseek(2).

       "l_len()"
           Queries or sets the length of the region (in bytes) in the file to be locked. A value of 0 is
           interpreted to mean a lock, starting at "l_start", to the end of the file. E.g., a lock obtained with
           l_whence set to "SEEK_SET" and both l_start and l_len set to 0 locks the complete file.

           According to SUSv3 support for negative values for l_len are permitted, resulting in a lock ranging
           from "l_start+l_len" up to and including "l_start-1". But not all systems support negative values for
           l_len and will return an error when you try to obtain such a lock, so please read the fcntl(2) man
           page of the system carefully for details.

       "l_pid()"
           If a call of the lock() method with "F_GETLK" indicates that another process is holding the lock (in
           which case the l_type property will be either "F_WRLCK" or "F_RDLCK") a call of the l_pid() method
           returns the PID of the process holding the lock.  This method does not accept any arguments.

   Locking
       After having set up the object representing a flock structure one can then try to obtain a lock, release
       it or determine the current holder of the lock by invoking the lock() method:

       "lock()"
           This method expects two arguments. The first one is a file handle (or typeglob). File::FcntlLock, and
           thus File::FcntlLock::XS (but neither File::FcntlLock::Pure nor File::FcntlLock::Inline), also
           accepts a "raw" integer file descriptor. The second argument is a flag indicating the action to be
           taken. So call it as in

             $fs->lock( $fh, F_SETLK );

           There are three values that can be used as the second argument:

           "F_SETLK"
               With "F_SETLK" the lock() method tries to obtain a lock (when l_type is set to either "F_WRLCK"
               or "F_RDLCK") or releases it (if l_type is set to "F_UNLCK"). If an attempt is made to obtain a
               lock but a lock is already being held by some other process the method returns "undef" and
               "errno" is set to "EACCESS" or "EAGAIN" (please see the the man page for fcntl(2) for more
               details).

           "F_SETLKW"
               is similar to "F_SETLK", but instead of returning an error if the lock can't be obtained
               immediately it puts the calling process to sleep, i.e., it blocks, until the lock is obtained at
               some later time. If a signal is received while waiting for the lock the method returns "undef"
               and "errno" is set to "EINTR".

           "F_GETLK"
               With "F_GETLK" the lock() method determines if and which process currently is holding the lock.
               If there's no other lock the l_type property will be set to "F_UNLCK". Otherwise the flock
               structure object is set to the values that would prevent us from obtaining a lock. There may be
               several processes that keep us from getting a lock, including some that themselves are blocked
               waiting to obtain a lock. "F_GETLK" will only make details of one of these processes visible, and
               one has no control over which process this is.

           On success the lock() method returns the string "0 but true", i.e., a value that is true in boolean
           but 0 in numeric context. If the method fails (as indicated by an "undef" return value) you can
           either immediately evaluate the error number (using $!, $ERRNO or $OS_ERROR) or check for it via the
           methods discussed below at some later time.

   Error handling
       There are minor differences between File::FcntlLock on the one hand and File::FcntlLock::Pure and
       File::FcntlLock::Inline on the other, due to the first calling the system function fcntl(2) directly
       while the latter two invoke the Perl "fcntl" function. Perl's "fcntl" function already returns a Perl
       error on some types of invalid arguments. In contrast File::FcntlLock passes them on to the fcntl(2)
       system call and then returns the systems response to the caller.

       There are three methods for obtaining information about the reason the a call of the lock() method
       failed:

       "lock_errno()"
           Returns the "errno" error number from the latest call of lock().  If the last call did not result in
           an error "undef" is returned.

       "error()"
           Returns a short description of the error that happened during the latest call of lock(). Please take
           the messages with a grain of salt, they represent what SUSv3 (IEEE 1003.1-2001) and the Linux,
           TRUE64, OpenBSD3 and Solaris8 man pages tell what the error numbers mean. There could be differences
           (and additional error numbers) on other systems. If there was no error the method returns "undef".

       "system_error()"
           While the error() method tries to return a string with some direct relevance to the locking operation
           (i.e., "File or segment already locked by other process(es)" instead of "Permission denied") this
           method returns the "normal" system error message associated with "errno". The method returns "undef"
           if there was no error.

   EXPORT
       The package exports the following constants:

       F_GETLK F_SETLK F_SETLKW
       F_RDLCK F_WRLCK F_UNLCK
       SEEK_SET SEEK_CUR SEEK_END

INCOMPATIBILITIES

       Obviously, this module requires that there's a fcntl(2) system call. Note also that under certain
       circumstances the File::FcntlLock::Pure and File::FcntlLock::Inline modules may not have been installed.
       This happens on 32-bit systems that use 64-bit integers in their flock structure but where the installed
       Perl version doesn't support the 'q' format for its "pack" and "unpack" functions.

CREDITS

       Thanks to Mark Jason Dominus and Benjamin Goldberg for helpful discussions, code examples and
       encouragement. Glenn Herteg pointed out several problems and also helped improve the documentation.
       Julian Moreno Patino helped correcting the documentation and pointed out problems arising on GNU Hurd
       which seems to have only very rudimentary support for locking with fcntl(2). Niko Tyni and Guillem Jover
       encouraged and helped with implementing alternatives to an XS-only approach which hopefully will make the
       module more useful under certain circumstances.

AUTHOR

       Jens Thoms Toerring <jt@toerring.de>

SEE ALSO

       perl(1), fcntl(2), lseek(2).

LICENSE

       This library is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
       itself.