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From: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: unlinking open files
Message-ID: <454@mtxinu.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Jun-87 16:52:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtxinu.454
Posted: Sat Jun 20 16:52:54 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jun-87 06:20:35 EDT
References: <6695@auspyr.UUCP> <1839@vdsvax.steinmetz.UUCP>
Reply-To: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould)
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley
Lines: 19

>One Question
>	Would deleting open files cause problems on an
>	NFS-based file system? 

Possibly.  This is one of the Unix file semantics that NFS does
not maintain.  However, since it is a common operation in the case
of temporary files, a client system that detects that a process
is unlinking a remote file that it has open will not actually
unlink the file.  Instead, it will rename the file and delay the
unlink until close time.

If some other system decides to unlink the file, then it will go
away and cause grief to the process that had it open.

-- 
Ed Gould                    mt Xinu, 2560 Ninth St., Berkeley, CA  94710  USA
{ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed   +1 415 644 0146

"A man of quality is not threatened by a woman of equality."