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From: news@telenet.telenet.com (News)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.games.bugs
Subject: Re: Problem with alock files
Summary: solution to alock problem
Message-ID: <201@telenet.telenet.com>
Date: 11 Sep 89 18:39:55 GMT
References: <1775@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP>
Organization: Telenet, Reston, VA, USA
Lines: 18

In article <1775@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP>, sharp@ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Maurice Sharp) writes:
> Hiya,
> 
>      I have a problem with nethack killing players by trickery.  The player is
> informed that a file alock.# (where # is some number) has been removed.  I am
> not sure how the file is removed, since there are no daemons running on the 
> network that delete files.
> 
	Here, the problem was with the MAXNROFPLAYERS flag which is set
        in the shell script file nethack in the public executable directory. 
        If MAX_NR_OF_PLAYERS is not defined when the code is compiled, 
        setting this option by the script causes the lock files to be 
        misnamed and clobbered by multiple people executing the program 
        at the same time.  Set MAXNROFPLAYERS to zero and the lock  
        files will be named correctly, and no more "trickery." 
         
        Dave Purks 
        ..!uunet!telenet!dkpurks