Re: Something fundamental - how nov works

[Dan Christensen <jdc+news@uwo.ca>]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Dan Christensen <jdc+news@uwo.ca> writes:
>
>> The idea is that all programs that access the file xxx first
>> run lockfile on xxx.lock.  
>
> OK, that seems kind of lame really since it depends on all apps that
> might access a file, playing nicely.  But anyway in the instant case,
> does that mean that gnus must be told to run lockfile before it
> begins to slurp?  Or does gnus know about that already?

By default, Gnus uses the movemail program, which should run lockfile.
On my Debian linux system, movemail is hidden away in

  /usr/lib/emacs/21.1/i386-debian-linux-gnu/movemail

You can test that this works by running movemail manually on a file
you have locked.  It should wait until you remove the lockfile.

% cd /tmp
% echo test > test1
% lockfile test1.lock
% /usr/lib/emacs/21.1/i386-debian-linux-gnu/movemail test1 test2
[this waits until I "rm -r test1.lock" in another window]

By doing a similar test, I found that movemail does *not* lock the
destination file, but won't run if that file already exists.

One wishlist item I've always had for movemail was the ability to
append to an existing file, and lock it while writing.  I use a script
to do this currently.

Dan