flockfile(3) - Linux man page
Name
flockfile, ftrylockfile, funlockfile - lock FILE for stdioSynopsis
#include <stdio.h> void flockfile(FILE *filehandle); int ftrylockfile(FILE *filehandle); void funlockfile(FILE *filehandle);
Description
(Note: this locking has nothing to do with the file locking done by functions like flock(2) and lockf(3).)
All this is invisible to the C-programmer, but there may be two reasons to wish for more detailed control. On the one hand, maybe a series of I/O actions by one thread belongs together, and should not be interrupted by the I/O of some other thread. On the other hand, maybe the locking overhead should be avoided for greater efficiency.
To this end, a thread can explicitly lock the FILE object, then do its series of I/O actions, then unlock. This prevents other threads from coming in between. If the reason for doing this was to achieve greater efficiency, one does the I/O with the non-locking versions of the stdio functions: with getc_unlocked() and putc_unlocked() instead of getc() and putc().
The flockfile() function waits for *filehandle to be no longer locked by a different thread, then makes the current thread owner of *filehandle, and increments the lockcount.
The funlockfile() function decrements the lock count.
The ftrylockfile() function is a non-blocking version of flockfile(). It does nothing in case some other thread owns *filehandle, and it obtains ownership and increments the lockcount otherwise.
