"Matt" == Matt Carpenter <mcarpent@Dusk.obscure.net> writes: "Hal" == Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com> writes:
Hal> That sounds very impressive! The one problem I've run into with Hal> mail filtering software is that each message asynchronously Hal> spawns a separate filter process. This can cause some conflicts Hal> with accessing disk files. Matt> If I am reading the procmail docs correctly, then the following Matt> recipe should create a lockfile called 'emscrypt.lock' which Matt> will prevent more than one instance of the script from being run Matt> at a time Matt> :0:emscrypt Matt> ^ Subject.*SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE Matt> |/PATH/emscrypt That is half correct. It will only create emscrypt.lock if you have configured procmail for that kind of locking, otherwise it will use lockf or flock to make the lock. As Hal pointed out, you will still have one process per message, but they will be processed one at a time. Matt> I agree it would be better if emscrypt used its own locks on the Matt> timestamp files. However, it is my understanding (someone Matt> please correct me if I am wrong) that there is no simple way to Matt> provide file locking in Perl that is portable across the various Matt> flavours of Unix (see the descriptions of the fcntl and flock Matt> functions on p. 144-145 of the Camel book). Another possibility is to call lockfile (a program included with procmail which performs compatible locking). You're better off using procmail's locking as it does what you're looking for, and many people have beat on the code over the years. -- steve@miranova.com baur Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread for $250/hour. Andrea Seastrand: For your vote on the Telecom bill, I will vote for anyone except you in November.