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From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Does this lockfile method work?
Message-ID: <13976@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 30 Sep 90 02:44:28 GMT
References: <a66fe0.6a9e@quack.sac.ca.us>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 8

In article <a66fe0.6a9e@quack.sac.ca.us> mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us (Nick Sayer) writes:
>In particular, is there any conceivable circumstance where
>the link() function fails when multiple processes are trying
>to link into the same destination?

link() is atomic in this respect.  The only unexpected failure mode
I can think of is if there are already the maximum supported number
of (other) links to the inode.