Where is flock() for Perl on Windows?

Question

I have a Perl script that I'd like to run on Windows, using either Strawberry Perl or ActivePerl; I don't care which. This script however, uses flock() calls, which does not seem to be included in either of those versions of Perl.

Can anyone help a Perl n00b get this up and running easily?

Answer 1

Is the Fcntl module installed? Try this:

perl.exe -MFcntl -e 1

If it complains, you don't have the Fcntl module installed. If it doesn't complain, then you have access to Fcntl::flock, so put this in your script:

use Fcntl qw(:DEFAULT :flock);

and off you go.

Answer 2

thanks. I installed strawberry and that worked.

FYI. This is the code in the script that ActivePerl didn't like.

use Fcntl ':flock'; # import LOCK_* constants

Answer 3

Try using perldoc -f flock to check the things are supported & then look into the given example to know the usage criteria of the function. Here copied from the perldoc:

C:>perldoc -f flock

 use Fcntl ':flock'; # import LOCK_* constant

 sub lock {
     flock(MBOX,LOCK_EX);
     # and, in case someone appended
     # while we were waiting...
     seek(MBOX, 0, 2);
 }

 sub unlock {
     flock(MBOX,LOCK_UN);
 }

 open(MBOX, ">>/usr/spool/mail/$ENV{'USER'}")