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From: reggers@UWOVAX.UWO.CA (Reg Quinton)
Newsgroups: news.software.anu-news
Subject: RE: Argh! Posting problems!
Message-ID: <0616159402@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Date: 11 Jul 89 15:23:22 GMT
Sender: ANU-NEWS Discussion <ANU-NEWS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Reply-To: Reg Quinton <reggers@UWOVAX.UWO.CA>
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In-Reply-To:  <0615249643@uwovax.uwo.ca> of Fri, 30 Jun 89 15:17:00 CDT

On Fri, 30 Jun 89 15:17:00 CDT, Bob Sloane <SLOANE@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU> said:
>If someone tries to post and article while the COLLECT.IDS file is busy, NEWS
>will be unable to open the file, and the ID will not get appended. Of course,
>this is not what is happening in the above case, but it is certainly a
>problem. Anyone have any ideas about how to fix it?
     
I've worked around   this problem (fopen(file,"a")  fails  because file  is
busy) in similar circumstances by either/both of these strategies:
     
        a) if busy then sleep a bit and try again.
        b) if busy then fopen(file,"w") and let file versions stack up.
     
the real rub is determining why the open failed... but assuming any failure
is a busy failure is adequate if you've set things up reasonably.