On Thu, 16 May 2002, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
> > > fly. What I would like to know is whether it would be safe to update the
> > > NDBM database used by Exim directly or whether I would need to lock it.
> - create it under a temporary name
> - mv it into place ("mv" uses rename(2) which is guaranteed atomic).
The problem with NDBM is that it uses *two* files, thus making it
impossible to do an atomic rename. Well, not impossible, just messier.
What you need to do is to put the two files into a directory, and rename
the directory.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.