lockf(3)

NAME#

lockf - apply, test or remove a POSIX lock on an open file

LIBRARY#

Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS#

#include <unistd.h>

int lockf(int \nfd\n, int \nop\n, off_t \nlen\n);

lockf():

\n
    _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500
\n
        || /* glibc >= 2.19: */ _DEFAULT_SOURCE
\n
        || /* glibc <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION#

Apply, test, or remove a POSIX lock on a section of an open file. The file is specified by fd, a file descriptor open for writing, the action by op, and the section consists of byte positions pos..pos+len-1 if len is positive, and pos-len..pos-1 if len is negative, where pos is the current file position, and if len is zero, the section extends from the current file position to infinity, encompassing the present and future end-of-file positions. In all cases, the section may extend past current end-of-file.

On Linux, lockf() is just an interface on top of fcntl(2) locking. Many other systems implement lockf() in this way, but note that POSIX.1 leaves the relationship between lockf() and fcntl(2) locks unspecified. A portable application should probably avoid mixing calls to these interfaces.

Valid operations are given below:

F_LOCK

Set an exclusive lock on the specified section of the file. If (part of) this section is already locked, the call blocks until the previous lock is released. If this section overlaps an earlier locked section, both are merged. File locks are released as soon as the process holding the locks closes some file descriptor for the file. A child process does not inherit these locks.

F_TLOCK

Same as F_LOCK but the call never blocks and returns an error instead if the file is already locked.

F_ULOCK

Unlock the indicated section of the file. This may cause a locked section to be split into two locked sections.

F_TEST

Test the lock: return 0 if the specified section is unlocked or locked by this process; return -1, set errno to EAGAIN (EACCES on some other systems), if another process holds a lock.

RETURN VALUE#

On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS#

EACCES or EAGAIN

The file is locked and F_TLOCK or F_TEST was specified, or the operation is prohibited because the file has been memory-mapped by another process.

EBADF

fd is not an open file descriptor; or op is F_LOCK or F_TLOCK and fd is not a writable file descriptor.

EDEADLK

op was F_LOCK and this lock operation would cause a deadlock.

EINTR

While waiting to acquire a lock, the call was interrupted by delivery of a signal caught by a handler; see signal(7).

EINVAL

An invalid operation was specified in op.

ENOLCK

Too many segment locks open, lock table is full.

ATTRIBUTES#

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

STANDARDS#

POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY#

POSIX.1-2001, SVr4.

SEE ALSO#

fcntl(2), flock(2)

locks.txt and mandatory-locking.txt in the Linux kernel source directory Documentation/filesystems (on older kernels, these files are directly under the Documentation directory, and mandatory-locking.txt is called mandatory.txt)