File system at level 1

File system at level 1

[Johan Rydberg]

Hi!

I have looked through the EL/IX Base API Specification (DRAFT, 
Version 1.1) and have some questions.

In section 4.6 you can read that functions like `flockfile'
must be present at level 1 (w/o option).  Shouldn't these 
function have file system option (i.e., only be present if
support for file system is)?  Other file system function has
atleast `f' as an option.

Regards,
Johan.


-- 
Johan Rydberg			johan.rydberg@netinsight.net
Net Insight AB, Sweden		direct: +46-8-685 04 17
http://www.netinsight.net	phone:  +46-8-685 04 00
				fax:    +46-8-685 04 20

Re: File system at level 1

[Nick Garnett]

Johan Rydberg <johan.rydberg@netinsight.se> writes:

> Hi!
> 
> I have looked through the EL/IX Base API Specification (DRAFT, 
> Version 1.1) and have some questions.
> 
> In section 4.6 you can read that functions like `flockfile'
> must be present at level 1 (w/o option).  Shouldn't these 
> function have file system option (i.e., only be present if
> support for file system is)?  Other file system function has
> atleast `f' as an option.
> 

These functions provide explicit application level locking of FILE
objects in multithread systems. They have nothing to do with file
locking accessible through fcntl().

Not all FILE objects are necessarily files in the filesystem,
they can be serial devices, TCP sockets or anything else. These
functions are actually quite independent of the underlying
implementation of the stream.


-- 
Nick Garnett
Cygnus Solutions, a Red Hat Company
Cambridge, UK