Re: [Nmh-workers] nmh-1.1-RC4 post /tmp/,LCK.* problem

[pmaydell]

Joel Reicher wrote:
>Dot locking is the only kind of locking guaranteed to be `supported' on
>all/most servers, so I don't see how any other default is sensible.

Really, no default is sensible. There's one right setting -- whatever
the other programs on your system are using -- and all the others are
wrong. There's no point in successfully obtaining a dotlock if the
programs you're trying to avoid clashing with are all using some other
scheme...

Perhaps we should make configure insist on the user specifying a
locking strategy, with no default :-)

>Anyway, I think the best might be for nmh to refuse to manipulate (create,
>edit, etc.) files that it cannot dotlock.

I think the idea of the timeout is to give whatever might have the
lock a chance to finish. Presumably we proceed anyway after a while
on the assumption that it's a stale lockfile...

Anyway, I've put in the special-casing of MHCONTEXT=/dev/null. Further
arguments about locking can be postponed to after 1.2, I hope.

-- PMM