file locking...

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <mailman.1004.1235929208.11746.python-list at python.org>, bruce 
wrote:

> using any kind of file locking process requires that i essentially have a
> gatekeeper, allowing a single process to enter, access the files at a
> time...

The gatekeeper doesn't need to do any more than ensure that any particular 
filename is only locked by a maximum of one process at a time.

Given that interprocess communication (and consequent context-switching) is 
going to be orders of magnitude faster than accessing disk files, there's no 
a-priori reason to assume that this need be a performance bottleneck.