Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!munnari.oz.au!mullauna!kemp From: kemp@mullauna.cs.mu.OZ.AU (David Kemp) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: mbase relation locking Summary: Relation locking seems a little suspect Keywords: mbase database C library mb_lck Message-ID: Date: 9 Jan 91 06:29:40 GMT Sender: news@cs.mu.oz.au Lines: 14 Anyone tried using mbase yet? Looks like a neat package, but careful inspection of how mb_lck works makes me suspect that on very rare occassions it will not work; and it has the potential for disaster. It seems that locks are made by altering the first byte of the file in which the relation is stored. However there does not seem to be any mutual exclusion preventing two applications trying to alter this first byte at the same time! Please let me know if I have overlooked something. Cheers, David Kemp.