From: joel@wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: 2 files with the same name in single directory, 0.99pl3, extfs Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 14:43:24 GMT
In article <1993Jan29.092212.287@klaava.Helsinki.FI> torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds) writes:
>[regarding two files with the same name in one directory]
>
>Yes, it's a bug - there is a race-condition when two processes are
>trying to create the same file (same name, anyway) at the same time. I
>didn't bother to do extensive checks for this: it's a lot of code for a
>problem that is very hard to see (I think this is the second time it has
>come up on c.o.l), and which isn't too serious anyway.
> [...]
>I tried it out a long time ago (even before the problem came up on c.o.l
>the first time), and yes, it was reasonably easy to do if you know how.
>I didn't fix it, as it really generally needs extreme circumstances to
>happen.
Don't some programs rely on the uniqueness of files for locking?
Wouldn't it be bad if two copies of one of those programs were
running, and each were allowed to create it's own lock file?
-Joel