How to lock and unlock pid file with “fcntl()”

Question

I make a reseach on the net and even on the stackoverflow inorder to find an example of using fcntl() to lock and unlock pid file \"/var/run/myapp.pid\"

Answer 1

As you tagged Linux, verbatim form man lockf (emphasis by me):

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.1-2001 leaves the relationship between lockf() and fcntl(2) locks unspecified. A portable application should probably avoid mixing calls to these interfaces.

So looking up the current glibc sources (eglibc-2.11.3/io/lockf.c) a possible usage of fcntl() to implement locking looks like this:

/* Copyright (C) 1994,1996,1997,1998,2000,2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   This file is part of the GNU C Library.

   The GNU C Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
   modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
   License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
   version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

   The GNU C Library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
   Lesser General Public License for more details.

   You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
   License along with the GNU C Library; if not, write to the Free
   Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
   02111-1307 USA.  */

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>

/* lockf is a simplified interface to fcntl's locking facilities.  */

int
lockf (int fd, int cmd, off_t len)
{
  struct flock fl;

  memset ((char *) &fl, '\0', sizeof (fl));

  /* lockf is always relative to the current file position.  */
  fl.l_whence = SEEK_CUR;
  fl.l_start = 0;
  fl.l_len = len;

  switch (cmd)
    {
    case F_TEST:
      /* Test the lock: return 0 if FD is unlocked or locked by this process;
         return -1, set errno to EACCES, if another process holds the lock.  */
      fl.l_type = F_RDLCK;
      if (__fcntl (fd, F_GETLK, &fl) < 0)
        return -1;
      if (fl.l_type == F_UNLCK || fl.l_pid == __getpid ())
        return 0;
      __set_errno (EACCES);
      return -1;

    case F_ULOCK:
      fl.l_type = F_UNLCK;
      cmd = F_SETLK;
      break;
    case F_LOCK:
      fl.l_type = F_WRLCK;
      cmd = F_SETLKW;
      break;
    case F_TLOCK:
      fl.l_type = F_WRLCK;
      cmd = F_SETLK;
      break;

    default:
      __set_errno (EINVAL);
      return -1;
    }

  /* lockf() is a cancellation point but so is fcntl() if F_SETLKW is
     used.  Therefore we don't have to care about cancellation here,
     the fcntl() function will take care of it.  */
  return __fcntl (fd, cmd, &fl);
}

A few mods are necessary to firstly make this compile:

• replace __fcntl with fcntl
• replace __set_errno(<errno-define>) with errno = <errno-define>

.. and secondly to have it become async-signal-save:

• replace the call to memset() with appropriate assigments to the struct fcntl variable.