Filelock

Heavily tested, but simple filelocking solution using flock command. It guarantees unlocking of files.

It works for sure on MRI 1.8, 1.9, 2.0, JRuby in both 1.8 and 1.9 mode, and Rubinius.

Usage

Filelock '/tmp/path/to/lock' do
  # do blocking operation
end

You can also pass the timeout for blocking operation (default is 60 seconds):

Filelock '/tmp/path/to/lock', :timeout => 10 do
  # do blocking operation
end

Note that lock file directory must already exist, and lock file is not removed after unlock.

FAQ

Does it support NFS?

No. You can use more complex lockfile gem if you want to support NFS.

The code is so short. Why shouln't I just copy-paste it?

Because even such short code can have issues in future. File locking is very fragile operation. You may expect new releases of this gem fixing discovered bogus behavior (or introducing awesome features).

You are encouraged to use it if you develop gem that uses flock command, and care about running it on different ruby versions and platforms. Each has its own quirks with regard to flock command.

How it's different from lockfile gem?

Lockfile is filelocking solution handling NFS filesystems, based on homemade locking solution. Filelock uses flock UNIX command to handle filelocking on very low level. Also lockfile allows you to specify retry timeout. In case of Ruby's flock command this is hard-cored to 0.1 seconds.

How it's different from cleverua-lockfile gem?

Cleverua removes lockfile after unlocking it. Thas has been proven fatal both in my tests and in filelocking advices from the Internet. You could try find a way to remove lock file without breaking Filelock tests. I will be glad to accept such pull-request.

Challenge

Please try to break Filelock in some way (note it doesn't support NFS).

If you show at least one failing test, I'll put your name below:

License

Filelock is MIT-licensed. You are awesome.