[Python-ideas] Draft PEP: Standard daemon process library

[Ben Finney]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" writes:

> the question being asked is why should users of the daemon process
> library need to worry about that, separately from other users of
> lockfiles or mutexes?

Perhaps my mistake is in calling it a “lockfile”. It's actually a
rather specific Unix-native concept: the “pidfile”, a combination
sentinel, lockfile, and primitive text interface. It isn't even used
much like other lockfiles (in that it wouldn't make sense, for example
to wrap a context manager around it).

I might return the terminology in the PEP back to “pidfile” to be
clear.

To answer the question, the location of a pidfile warrants specific
mention (separate from discussion of lockfiles) in at least two OS
standards that I'm aware of, as well as howtos and other discussions.
For that reason, it's better to have a simple way to tell a program
the desired location and name of its pidfile in particular.

-- 
 \      “[I]t is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he |
  `\                thinks he already knows.” —Epictetus, _Discourses_ |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney